She was burning.
She shot up ramrod-straight from the forest floor, floundering wildly to stifle the white-hot flames that licked her forearms, her hands, her face. Her heart rammed against her ribcage, the agony reducing any coherent thought to a pitiful scrap of ash.
Her wand, her wand - she needed to put out the fire -
Her fingernails scraped the loamy soil, the musky scent of earth filling her nostrils just enough to draw her out of the visceral panic. She blanched as her hand stretched out in front of her. She looked down, wadding two fistfuls of her robes in a white-knuckled grip.
There were no flames - only the sight of her disheveled, dirt-crusted cloak. But the agony - that was real. She searched herself for some kind of wound, for the after-effects of some kind of torture curse -
Her hear thumped painfully once, twice. The agony was real, she realized. But it wasn't hers.
She siphoned off the floodgates in her chest, following the pain as it retreated to its source - a black figure who lay crumpled and lifeless on the forest floor, not ten feet away.
She stumbled to her feet. "Professor Snape," she croaked, rushing to him. "Professor."
Ariadne rolled him carefully onto his back, her own hands shaking from the effort to keep up a barrier between them.
He stirred ever so slightly - and his eyes flew open, his whole body tensing as consciousness returned to him. His large nostrils flared. Ariadne watched him in shock, expecting him to cry out.
His black stare pinned her where she knelt. A flash of recognition, and he screwed his eyes shut.
He growled through clenched teeth. "What. Happened."
She snatched her hands away, leaning back on the balls of her feet.
"The centaurs," she said quietly. "We were running, and you - erm, pushed me out of the way..." she cleared her throat and trailed off, remembering the searing pain in her thigh. She slid a hand down her leg, feeling for some kind of wound.
"I did nothing of the sort," he said nastily. "I would never waste a perfectly good human shield."
He gasped suddenly, his hand seizing his leg. When he pulled it away, his palm dripped scarlet.
Ariadne did a double-take - the right leg of his stringently-pressed trousers was slicked with blood. It oozed hot and fast from a splintered arrow shaft jutting out of his thigh. The snatches of his pale flesh were an almost unearthly shade of white against the dark blood and dark robes.
"Merlin," Ariadne breathed. That explained the phantom pain in her leg, then.
Snape's hand disappeared within the folds of his robes, searching for something. He froze.
His eyes darted wildly around the immediate perimeter, and his lips pressed into a thin white line.
"My wand," he said tightly.
Ariadne blanched, head swiveling. Snape's wand was nowhere in sight - in fact, neither was the clearing where the centaurs had first come upon them. The trees around them were thick and unfamiliar. It was as if they had spent days walking straight into the heart of the forest, away from the castle and the crystal barrier that the teachers had nearly finished.
"How..." the words died on her lips. Snape's eyes were on hers, and she could taste the razor-sharp disdain before he'd even spoken aloud.
"This is your fault," he hissed.
He violently tore a long, thin strip from his robe. She was shocked he was able to move at all - his pain crashed against her like white waves against a cliff. It was making her nauseous. She supposed it was only through sheer spite he remained conscious.
"I'm sure I'd love to hear how you worked that one out, but youneed to lie still. That arrow was poisoned." The liquid fire that had startled her awake, she now watched pulsate and snake through his magic.
"Truly, your capacity to point out the obvious never ceases to astound me."
Roughly, he tied the strip of his robe just above the wound. It did little to discourage the steady trickle of blood.
She fumbled for her own wand, racking her brain for the scant healing spells she'd picked up in passing at the Ministry. They had been spells cast in urgent whispers by the Healers keeping the prisoners - Ariande's victims - alive, until the Ministry had gleaned what dark knowledge they could. They had almost never been spells to stop bleeding.
"Hold on - Potions Masters are certified Healers, aren't they?" she asked, ignoring the black look on his face. "I need you to walk me through this. Tell me what to do."
Snape had crossed his arms tightly across his chest. He shut his eyes as he breathed in short, shallow breaths.
"The last thing I need," he said through gritted teeth, "is for you to turn me inside out with a miscast mending charm. I'll take my chances...with..."
The light of his aura flickered like an overtaxed circuit.
"Oh, hush," she snapped. At last, her fingers coiled around the grip of her wand, pressing against a bruise on her hip that told her they had taken quite a fall. "Wherever the hell we are, we're miles away from the castle. We both know you won't last very long without the proper - "
Her wand dangled in two pieces before her, barely held together by a few gossamer strands of dragon heartstring.
" - help."
Several seconds passed. Snape cracked one eye open, curiosity aroused at the abrupt silence.
Suddenly, his shoulders were shaking. Ariadne dropped the broken wand, a new surge of panic burying her deep dismay. He was choking or seizing from the poison, she thought - that is, until she heard the strange sound, deep and resonant, echoing from his chest.
He was laughing.
She never would have imagined him capable of producing that sound. She was tempted to think it was coming from somewhere else in the forest - not from Snape. Even still, his laugh had a sardonic taint to it, confirming that it was indeed him. She stared in shock.
"Forgive me," he rasped, sounding weaker by the minute. "Trelawney always said my demise would be marked by poison and blood. I find - a great deal of irony in this being one of the few true predictions."
The laughter seemed to sap him of the little strength he had left. She gave herself a mental kick.
"Absolutely bloody not." She gripped his thin shoulders between her hands. "You are not going to die, Professor Snape. I refuse to be indebted to you twice over."
As she watched, his eyes began to roll back into his head. He sagged in her grasp.
"Professor Snape."
She watched the light of his magic flare and grow impossibly dim. Her swore echoed through the still air, and she looked helplessly at the trees around them. The centaurs' poison worked fast - and from what she could see, it worked by choking the magic of its victim. Nothing could kill a wizard faster than a poison like that.
Without her wand, and without anyone to help them - it would be a matter of minutes.
An idea tugged at the back of her mind - an idea that made her nauseous with possibility and with dread.
She bit her lip until she tasted iron. She shuffled closer to him, grinding her knees into the dirt. With a trembling hand, she removed her left glove.
She took a steadying breath. In her mind, she was back at the Ministry, surrounded by the sterile white walls of the innermost interrogation chamber. She allowed herself to drift back to the moment she had first discovered how she could mark the channels of magic that swam in her victims' veins. How every one of their deepest fears was putty in her hands. How she could cripple them with the pain of searing loss, or disfigure with the ravishing emptiness of grief.
How she could just as easily siphon off the flow of their magic, and take their emotions from them - leaving them in a vacuum that drove them mad with terrifying efficiency.
As if approaching a live wire, she brought her hand near to his face. She hesitated briefly. Her fingers came to rest on the aristocratic curve of his cheekbone.
She gasped as if she had been dunked in a bucket of ice water. Snape's eyes remained closed - she sensed his tormented consciousness, submerged beneath heavy layers of agony.
Precious seconds ticked by as she grit her teeth, pushing mightily against the powerful surging of the magic in his blood. The poison fought her tooth and nail. It was unwilling to relinquish its captive host. Her limbs gew heavy as she allowed the white-hot fire to consume her, relegating what part of it she could to the deep, untouched recesses of her mind. Spots danced at the edge of her vision, and she struggled to breathe.
At last, she tore her hand away from his face, falling backward. Her muscles were jelly. Snape did not move.
She collapsed onto her elbow, and her head hit the dirt. Cold tears were stinging her cheeks.
High, high above them, the gnarled boughs of the ancient trees swayed like greedy, possessive fingers. She blinked blearily. The forest was calling to her again. Its whisper drummed steadily on an unnatural breeze.
The world faded in a dream, her waking mind teetering on the precipice like a glass domino.
The last thing she remembered was the immeasurable, cavernous loneliness she'd felt when she'd touched him.