In Every Darkness
Chapter Fifty Seven: Poison
30.9.1996
The last morning in September dawned bright and clear, but for Harry and seven other students, the rising of the sun did not herald the start of the day, but rather the end of a long hard Quidditch practice in the early predawn darkness.
"Whew, that was tiring," Ron muttered, smothering a yawn. The rest of the team nodded in tired agreement. "But we have to be in form for the first match of the season, Slytherin vs. Gryffindor!"
The rest of the team laughed and nodded agreement, hurrying into the changing rooms to get changed before breakfast and lessons began the day for the rest of the school.
Harry hurried back up the Gryffindor Common Room, carrying with him several slices of buttered bread – he wanted to do some more of his homework so he'd have more time that afternoon with Tatsu to train.
"We'd better get to Potions," Hermione remarked, coming in through the Portrait Hole. "Did you manage to finish the assignment?"
"Yeah, thanks Hermione," Harry replied absently. Hermione had been helping Harry with his homework more than usual over the past little while, making sure that he had caught up after taking time off to go the court case.
Harry thought she might have guessed what had happened in the battle, but she never mentioned anything about it, and neither did Ron, though Harry was sure that this was because the red-haired boy had been warned off by Hermione.
Harry and Hermione hurried down to the dungeons to the closed door the Potions classroom. There were no Slytherins there quite yet – they didn't arrive until the bell rang anymore. It was their way of protesting not having Snape for a teacher.
"Harry, Hermione, good morning," a voice came from behind him. The only two Gryffindors in the NEWT level Potions class turned to greet Michael with smiles. "Come on in."
Michael rested a hand on the door of the classroom, which immediately swung open. "You've got your papers? Excellent," he said, collecting them.
"What are we doing this lesson, Sir?" Hermione asked.
"I'll be showing some of the effects basilisk venom has on things. It's very difficult to get hold of, naturally, and I had to get special permission from the Ministry to show you, but I believe it's a necessary thing to show you, and they eventually agreed," Michael replied.
"You've got basilisk venom?" Hermione asked, incredulous. "That's a class A non-tradable good!"
"I know, that's why I had to get special permission," Michael replied. He'd told the students to call him Michael or Professor Michael, because otherwise they'd get confused as to which Professor McGonagall was being talked about.
The bell went, and suddenly Slytherin students appeared, walking into the room looking sullen. Malfoy and his gang were the last people into the room, about three minutes after the bell rang.
"You are three minutes late, Mr. Malfoy, why?" Michael stated, looking sternly at the blond Slytherin.
"I was eating breakfast," Malfoy replied with a sneer.
"You should have been eating breakfast earlier and left earlier to arrive here on time, Mr. Malfoy. Ten points from Slytherin for every minute you were late, and the same for those of you who were with him," Michael said, eyes like flint.
Harry could easily see the Transfiguration teacher in this man.
Malfoy opened his mouth in something akin to horror – there had been five people with him, so suddenly Slytherin was one hundred and fifty points down!
Harry and Hermione shared a smile. Malfoy would never be late to this lesson again!
"But
sir! You can't do that!" Malfoy
cried. Harry knew that Slytherin had been tying with Gryffindor in the lead
with two hundred points each this morning, now Slytherin had gone back to where
Hufflepuff was!
"Be silent, Malfoy, or it'll be double
that," Michael replied. "Now sit down. In future, that is the penalty for
lateness to this class. I do not expect any
of you to be more than a minute late again. Now, today we'll be looking at the
effect that Basilisk venom has on various substances."
He fiddled with something on the desk, then brought out several tubes, each one half filled with various substances. There was one with water, one with plant leaves and one with metal shavings.
Then he brought out a platter with a bit of flesh that looked to have come from a goat or something. It was still fresh, and most people in the room wrinkled their noses.
"Come up the front please," Michael told them. Harry and Hermione, who were sitting in the front desks, didn't even have to move, and the Slytherins gathered themselves only reluctantly.
"Watch closely," Michael told them, and took out a dropper. "This contains a very small about of basilisk venom." Take out the stopper, he allowed to drops to fall into the water. Harry noticed that Michael was wearing gloves.
The water, for a moment, remained the same. Then it suddenly turned a putrid green, and stayed that way for a little while, before fading back to a slightly misty clear.
"Deadly," Michael murmured softly. "If someone drank that, they would die almost instantaneously."
Harry noted that the Slytherins had slightly eager looks on their faces now. "There is no cure for ingested basilisk venom," Michael continued. "It kills so fast that even there was one, it would have to be taken only seconds after swallowing the poison, and, in most cases, you have no idea you've been poisoned until you die."
Next to Harry, Hermione shuddered.
"There is, however, a charm that should show you if a liquid has been infested with basilisk venom," Michael took out his wand. "You notice that the water is a little murky now? That shows you that something might be wrong with it … To test it, you can do this," raising his wand, Michael flicked it at the tube. "Revelo," he murmured.
Immediately the water returned to the putrid green colour it had been before. "As you see, the spell is simple and effective, and will work on any given liquid. Now, let's see what the venom does to metal, shall we?"
He allowed a few droplets to fall into the tube containing the metal. With a soft hiss and a touch of steam, the metal immediately began to decompose.
"The venom eats through metal with a frightening speed," Michael said, not thirty seconds later, when the metal had been reduced to nothing. "A long time ago, before the poison was outlawed, thieves would use this to aid them in getting into dwellings. Now, for plants."
Again, a few droplets fell into the tube, and immediately they reacted as if touched by acid. Wherever the drops fell, they bit through the leaves, which turned black around the edges, curling up and eventually turning to dust before disappearing completely.
Hermione shuddered again, and Harry could blame her.
"Now, the most important one. What the venom does to flesh," Michael said. Harry winced, though no one was paying attention to him, and his hand slid to his arm, just above the elbow, where once a basilisk fang had buried itself.
Now Michael was taking out a hollow bin, letting four or five drops of venom fall into it. Taking this, he buried it in the flesh he'd brought. Almost immediately a nasty smell filled everyones nostrils. "It's hard to see what's happening here," Michael remarked. "But the poison in running through the veins that remain here, finding anything that it can destroy … there won't be much, that's why the smell, you see. Had this been alive, it would have died in about thirty seconds."
"Harry," Hermione squeaked suddenly. "Didn't one of those bite you?"
"Yes," Harry muttered, his hand still covering the place where the fang had entered his flesh, as if he could still remember the sensation.
"How did that happen?" Michael immediately looked at Harry, eyes sharp. "And how is it you still live?"
"It was back in my second year. The monster in the Chamber of Secrets was a basilisk. It took Ginny Weasley, my friends sister, into the Chamber, me and Ron went after it with Lockhart, the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher of the time. Ron got trapped by a cave in, him on one side and me on the on the other. I was on the side that led further into the Chamber, so I kept on alone.
"In the Chamber, Tom Riddle had come out of diary in which he preserved a memory of sixteen year old self, he was using Ginny's life force. He called the basilisk down to get it to kill me.
"Dumbledore's phoenix, Fawkes, came down into the Chamber, it had the Sorting Hat with it. Fawkes blinded the basilisk by attacking its eyes, but Riddle made it keep coming at me by smelling me.
"The Sorting Hat gave me a sword, it's in Dumbledore's office, and I used that to kill the basilisk, but it managed to sink a fang into my arm before it died.
"Fawkes landed and cried on the wound – phoenix tears have healing powers, and it was that that saved my life," Harry finished, shrugging slightly.
"And is the basilisk still down there?" Michael asked, an eager note in his voice.
"Yes, it's still there, as far as I know. Only me and Voldemort," the room flinched, "can get into the Chamber because you have to be able to speak parsletongue. I doubt that Voldemort," everyone flinched again, "has been down there any time recently, as he only had the chance last year and year before, and he hasn't been to Hogwarts yet."
"Well … the Ministry will want to go down there and collect anything useful … I'll have to le them know … You wouldn't object to taking them down there, would you?" Michael asked.
"No … No, I wouldn't," Harry said, after a few moments thought.
"Oh good. We'll take the class down as well then!" Michael said. "It might be interesting to see a basilisk. There hasn't been one, other than this, for about four hundred years now … Chance of a life time, especially if it's dead!"
Harry and Hermione smiled, but the Slytherins didn't. Harry knew that if Snape had made a comment like that, they'd all be laughing. But the old Potions Master was not likely to say something that close to a joke.
"Very well, I'll talk to the Ministry tonight, most likely. Now, for next week, I want a report on the effects that basilisk venom has on four different substances. Dismissed," Micheal ended the lesson.
Harry was just as glad – talking of basilisks had woken his memories of second year. In his mind, he could see the huge form of the thousand-year-old serpant rearing over him, and then falling, falling … he could feel the sword in his hands, the sensation of warm blood from the basilisks mouth dripping over his hands.
More than that, he could feel, as though it had just happened, the serpants fang digging into his arm, here the sound of it snapping off as the huge snake fell sideways.
He could feel the sensation of the poison spreding through his blood, stealing his life away, and then Fawkes, with pearly white tears, crying on the wound, and the sensation of life returning.
"Are you alright?" Hermione asked in concern, and her words were echoed by Grypis, who asked the exact same thing, only in Harry's mind.
"Am I?" Harry wondered aloud.
***
That'll do for an end, I think!