Chapter 29 This Too, Too Solid Flesh

Mary took off her cap and unpinned her hair, letting it flow down her back. The sun was warm, and a gentle breeze brought her the scents of reeds and wild water lilies. She inhaled deeply, and looked around the sunny lake shore with pleasure. How could a local map not make note of such a lovely spot? The flat rock on which she sat must surely have been the scene of many picnics. To her left, she saw a shingle beach, and she could envision children playing on it, wading in the sparkling blue water whilst their parents fished for lake trout.

'Well,' she said to herself, 'Holmes is generally oblivious to pretty prospects and pleasant vistas. Now, if there were caves around the lake…' She shaded her eyes and looked to the far shore. Her brows drew together. I could have sworn there was nothing there but trees… Above the treetops she saw a tower – no, four, no, five towers, each one with a pennon fluttering from its spire. 'How did I miss that?' She stood up to get a better view. The sun glanced off the lake, momentarily blinding her, and when she blinked and shaded her eyes, the towers were gone.

She shook her head. Was she hallucinating, or was it merely wishful thinking? She sat down on the rock again and began to stow her belongings in her rucksack. This was no way to find Holmes; she had four or five hours at the most of daylight, and it would be better to resume her search immediately. She looked about her for her cap, located it, turned around and gasped in shock.

An enormous man with an open-mouthed look of complete astonishment on his heavily bearded face regarded her. He must have been easily twice as tall and as wide as anyone she had ever seen. A movement drew her sight to the man's side; next to him stood a mangy hound, also very large, with his head cocked to one side. The hound whined.

"Cor!" said the huge man. His voice boomed hollowly, as if he spoke into a cave. "Who – who – wh-what…." He threw up his great hands helplessly.

He's afraid of me, Mary realised. She put up one hand, palm out. "Please, don't be frightened," she said. "Can you tell me where I am? I seem to be lost."

"Muh-muh-muh," the big man stammered, and stepped back.

Mary rose. "I only mean to ask you if you have seen a tall, thin man; he would be a stranger here…"

It was no use. The man's mouth moved, but no words issued forth. A ring of white encircled his beetle-black eyes. He was just too terrified to speak!

The hound whined loudly. Mary looked over at him; he was cringing away. When she looked back, the big man was gone, and when she looked down, the dog was gone as well. 'Iam hallucinating' she thought. 'Perhaps it is the change of water, or perhaps this place lies on the crossed leylines, places the Druids of old chose for their temples because of the great Earth power thereunder. I shouldn't be surprised; Scotland is known to be a fey place.'

She stood up and scanned the distant lake shore: no towers. She looked round about: no huge man, no scruffy hound. She shouldered her rucksack, twisted up her hair and clapped her cap on her head, and set off once more.

Sherlock Holmes released the rubber tubing from Snape's upper arm, and carefully withdrew the needle of the syringe, covering the puncture with a sticking plaster handed to him by a solicitous Neville Longbottom. He emptied the syringe into a beaker that would now contain half a litre of Snape's blood.

Snape sat up, and immediately fell back upon the couch, his head spinning. He groaned and closed his eyes. "Holmes, you did not tell me I would become dizzy!"

Holmes, carefully setting the beaker upon the laboratory workbench, looked over at him. "No, I did not say that, but I did tell you that you would be putting your life at risk, did I not? Longbottom, please give Professor Snape some of that tonic that Madam Pomfrey prepared. He must have some every half hour; it will help to begin the process of replacing the lost blood."

Longbottom looked at Holmes with an expression of sheer terror on his face. "You -want me to feed it to him, sir?"

Holmes shot a grey glare at the boy. 'Yes, Longbottom, that is precisely what you are to do, and mind that you do not spill any, nor cause him to choke."

Longbottom took the cork out of a brown glass phial. An unpleasant odour assailed his nostrils. Ugh… He set the phial on the table next to the couch. Sweat beaded on his forehead and upper lip. "Professor Snape, sir…"

A beady black eye snapped open. "Well? Get on with it, Longbottom. Now!"

Carefully, Longbottom slid his arm under Professor Snape's shoulders, raising him from the sofa. He took the phial in hand and brought it to the man's lips, trying valiantly to keep his hand from shaking. Snape opened his mouth, and Longbottom poured in the liquid. Snape grimaced and swallowed. Gently, Neville lowered the man back to the couch.

Holmes looked over: "Good work, Longbottom. Come over here, I need your assistance…"

By the next morning, Hermione was sitting up in her infirmary bed, propped with many pillows. Sherlock Holmes had come up to see her, bringing a bouquet of Professor Sprout's most fragrant roses and the sincere good wishes of Severus Snape, who was still too weak to visit. Hermione was pale and wan, but she smiled widely at Holmes and thanked him courteously, asking that he in turn give her best regards to Snape along with her wishes that he recover quickly. As he rose to go, she put her hand on his arm.

"Mr Holmes, I am afraid that he may receive a summons from the Dark Lord, and since he is too weak to go voluntarily, the Death Eaters will seize him roughly. Word will doubtless get back to Voldemort that we have found a way to cure the influenza and are working on the restoration of magical abilities – he will certainly mount an all-out attack."

"Yes," replied Holmes. "Snape has told me of the extent of Voldemort's criminal insanity. As soon as we begin to restore magic, he will doubtless take steps to subdue us. If Severus is summoned…" He looked at Hermione, his grey eyes glittering. "He is a trickster; it will take a trick to stop him." He bent and brushed his lips across Hermione's forehead, took one red rose from her bouquet and strode to the door. Out of the corner of his eye, he spied Sister Brigit; he stepped quickly to her side, handed her the rose, then turned and left the Infirmary.

Harry watched him leave, and then approached Sister Brigit. "If Hermione hasn't had her breakfast yet, I'll help her," he said.

Sister Brigit ruffled his hair and favoured him with her small, curved smile. "She'll have it from ye sooner than from me, lad," she said. Her eyes took on a faraway look, and the next moment a House-Elf appeared, carrying a tray with two covered dishes, a goblet and flatware rolled up in a red and gold napkin tied with Gryffindor ribbon.

"Thank you, Nibby," said Harry, and he took the tray from the House-Elf and carried it over to Hermione's bedside. Hermione looked at him. "Ugh, are you going to make me eat?"

Harry took her hand. "I'm not going to make you eat, I'm going to encourage you!" he said. "The other day, when I was still peckish, Ron encouraged me to eat my porridge, and I felt much, much better straightaway. What have we here?" He uncovered a dish of porridge, looked about to make sure that Sister Agrippina wasn't watching, and sprinkled it with sugar from the small silver castor.

Hagrid put his supper dishes into the sink, filled Fang's bowl with fresh water, and set about washing up. He heaved a great sigh; he was still unnerved. 'Met a ghost, I did,' he thought to himself. 'Pretty ghost, but still – one moment she's there in front of me, the next she's gone, and how I wish I had a wand to make her hold still! Erm, I shouldn't have said that! '

He carried his pipe and tobacco over to his favourite armchair by the fire, sat down and propped his feet on a footstool. What did it all mean? Could the apparition be related to the very strange doings in the castle, what with the influenza and the loss of magic? 'No', he reasoned, 'what I saw was magic, all right. There's still magic, then, just not in the castle…' He shook his head as if to clear it; it was far too complicated. Still, he would not forget the pretty face with the round spectacles, rather like Harry's, and the lovely strawberry blonde hair. 'I'll talk to Perfesser Flitwick about it in the morning,' he resolved.

He lit his pipe and blew a fat ring of smoke into the fireplace. Fang scrambled to his feet, muttering, and trotted to the door. Hagrid heaved himself up; "What is it, Fang? Yeh hear summat?" He listened. Someone – or something- scratched feebly on his door. He looked out through his peephole, but there was no-one within sight. The scratching continued, and he jerked the door open. Draco Malfoy, crouched on his doorstep, fell over the lintel and onto the braided rug.

Hagrid caught the boy and carried him over to the settle. Draco was greenish-pale, and his face was dirty and blotched with bruises, some of them bloody, He had been weeping; there were fresh tear-tracks on the dirt. Quickly, Hagrid wetted a cloth and wiped the boy's face. "What happened to yeh, Draco? Yeh look to be fair beaten up!"

Draco rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands, smudging dirt anew on his face. "It was – I was…" He looked down at his hands, also dirty and bruised.

Hagrid sat down next to him. "Draco, yeh can tell me, it won't do to keep it all in, lad. These are strange times, an' strange things is happenin' everywhere."

"All right – I was with Lord Voldemort, and he got angry with me, and he struck me with Cruciatus, the bastard. I only wanted to tell him something, and he – he ridiculed me, and next I knew I was lying in the dirt in the Forbidden Forest, and I thought I'd die."

Hagrid looked at Draco with revulsion and pity in his eyes. "Yeh did it, didn't yeh, took the Dark Mark, eh? That was daft of yeh, Draco. I heard yeh faked havin' the influenza, and Severus threw yeh out of the infirmary. Daft an' stupid, boy. What will yeh father say?"

Draco sniffed. "My father? He doesn't give a rat's arse about anything I tell him. He ridiculed me worse than Voldemort. He called me a cockroach; he said they might as well draw piss as draw blood. He thought it was all a big joke, and he was more interested in Holmes' Muggle bint than in the man himself."

"What did yeh tell 'im?"

Draco wrung the edge of his sleeve in his hands. His voice dropped. "I wanted to tell him that Cornelius Fudge said that Sherlock Holmes isn't a Muggle, he's a character in a book. He couldn't have cared less! And then, when I told Voldemort, he got angry and told me I was wasting his time, and then he threw the Unforgivable at me."

"So they didn't take yeh seriously, either of them. Now what are yeh goin' to do? Crawl back to Tom Riddle?" Hagrid folded his arms across his chest; he had no love for Death Eaters, and he was disgusted that Draco had joined them. "I'm disappointed at what yeh did, Draco. 'Twill do yeh nothin' but harm, the Dark Mark."

Hagrid held out his hand to the boy. "Come on, Draco; let's get yeh to yeh Head of House. He'll know what to do."

Sherlock Holmes sat down wearily on the laboratory stool. He had been working on the blood serum all day, preparing it for the next step: the introduction of the potion that would apply the Law of Contagion. Longbottom, as weary as he, was washing up the glassware and implements that he and Snape had used in preparation of the blood serum. Neville had made himself useful, performing the many menial chores that were necessary to potions production.

Holmes had heard that Snape was particularly severe with Longbottom, and had bedevilled his early years at Hogwarts with punishments and detentions. Now, at the end of his school years, the young man had finally achieved a measure of respect from the very Professor who had made his life miserable in the past, and moved with a calm self-assurance as he worked diligently.

Someone knocked loudly on the laboratory door. Before Holmes could open it, it opened, and Rubeus Hagrid ducked his head and entered, towing Draco Malfoy behind him. Draco kept his head down and didn't look up for a moment.

"Hagrid! What is it – what, you've got the Malfoy boy with you; he looks terrible! What happened?"

Snape, from his place on the couch, raised his hand, and Hagrid went to him immediately. "Severus, don't tell me yeh have the sickness as well! I hate to bother yeh, but Draco here has summat to tell yeh, it's important." He pulled a chair over to the side of the couch and deposited Draco into it, then moved back to stand with Holmes. "Bad business, Mr Holmes, bad business."

Draco bent forward, and in a whisper, told his Head of House about his unfortunate encounters with his father and Voldemort. At one point, Snape's eyes slid over to where Holmes stood, but he said nothing. When Draco was finally done, Snape beckoned to Holmes, who hurried to his side.

"Draco has been unutterably foolish. His punishment shall be to assist in the laboratory. He has his magickal powers intact, and with my direction, he can compound the potion. Longbottom will bring him what he needs." He fixed Draco with his cold black eyes. "Am I understood? There is no room for error. You may yet redeem yourself, but I warn you: any dunderhead mistakes and you will be a dead dunderhead, along with everyone else in the castle. "

Holmes wrote down Snape's instructions as he dictated them, and then made Draco repeat them back to him. He watched as the boy stepped over to a cauldron, lit the fire under it with a flick of his wand, and then began to call for the ingredients. Longbottom brought them over to him, not looking at him directly. Holmes surmised that there was no love lost between the two.

Now and then Draco referred to the notes Holmes had made. Snape called Hagrid over, and the big man propped him up so he could watch the proceedings. When all the ingredients had been added to the simmering cauldron, Draco took his wand from his sleeve, and slowly and deliberately, stirred the potion twelve times in a counter clockwise direction, muttering inaudibly all the while.

Imagine, said Holmes to himself, barely nineteen years old and he's a full-fledged Wizard, using magic to prepare a magickal potion! Green sparks flickered on the surface of the liquid in the cauldron.

Time passed slowly. Draco pulled a stool over and watched the cauldron, never taking his eyes or his mind off it. Now and then he turned over an hourglass; now and then he stirred the mixture, pronouncing incantations.

"Uncle Severus, Mr Holmes! The potion is ready." Draco extinguished the fire under the cauldron with a flick of his wand. "Longbottom, set out a row of blue glass phials on the laboratory worktable." He turned to Snape: "Shall I call Headmaster Dumbledore?"

Snape lifted a pale hand. "Longbottom, Floo the Headmaster and tell him that all is in readiness. He does not have his powers, but he should be here." Longbottom went over to the hearth, took a handful of powder from the box on the mantelpiece, threw it into the fire and shouted, "Headmaster Dumbledore!" The next moment, the Headmaster himself emerged from the hearth, shaking his robes all round, brushing off ash and Floo powder.

"Well, Neville, my boy! I am pleased to see that you have been so diligent, and of such great assistance to Professor Snape and Mr Holmes!" He looked around. "Draco! It's good to see you here, helping out."

"I'm not sure it's successful yet," sounded the feeble voice of Severus Snape, still lying on the couch, wrapped in a bilious green Slytherin blanket. "The critical steps must be performed at once."

Without further ado, Snape nodded to Neville, who brought over the beaker of Snape's blood. Draco put his wand into the cauldron and began to stir it clockwise. He chanted slowly; he had always been much better with Charms than with potions. At his nod, Neville poured the blood into the cauldron in a thin, steady stream. Holmes, observing from a safe distance, noted vapours of many colours arising from the cauldron, mingling in the air and then dropping down into the surface of the liquid. Finally, all was added, and there was not even the tiniest drop of blood left in the beaker. Draco extended his wand over the cauldron, looked over at Snape, and pronounced a final charm.

"You may decant the serum now," said Snape. "Holmes, you may cork the phials, but try not to allow any of the liquid to touch your skin. It could burn you severely."

The Headmaster said, "It's done, Severus. Who shall be the first to try it?"

Snape sighed wearily. "Longbottom, I suppose," he said, "and if there are no ill-effects, then you, Headmaster. Go on, Longbottom. Swallow it down, and we shall see what we shall see."

Neville turned pale green, and Holmes put his arm around his shoulder. "What's wrong, Neville? You have been honoured, to be the first to try the magic restoring potion."

Longbottom drew himself up. "I shall do my best, sir," he said. He reached out a shaking hand, took a phial of potion, withdrew the cork, and gulped down the contents. He made a terrible face, and Holmes made haste to hand him a goblet of water.

"Drink this, Neville," he said. "It will take away the taste." Neville drank some of the water, and shook himself all over like a dog.

"Thank you, Mr Holmes, "he said. Then, his eyes widened. Hesitantly, he reached into his sleeve and withdrew his wand. He pointed it at the empty phial still in his hand. "Relocatio," he said, and the phial sailed over to the laboratory sink, where it landed with a plunk in a waiting pan of wash water.

"Bravo! Bravo, my boy!" shouted the Headmaster. He shook hands vigorously with Neville and with Holmes, and went quickly over to Snape. "It's working! Severus, Neville's magic is restored, look!"

Neville's normal rosy colour had returned. "Look, Professor Snape!" he cried. He waved his wand over his head, shouted, "Flora!" and immediately all of the empty vessels in the laboratory were filled to overflowing with flowers of all kinds.

Snape rose up on one elbow, glowering. "Longbottom! Get rid of those flowers! This is a laboratory, not a –"He grimaced, then gasped, and curled into a tight ball, his face stark with pain.

Dumbledore hastened to his side, rolled back the sleeve of his robe. On Snape's left forearm, the Dark Mark festered, glowing green. "He's been summoned," he said. "Draco, give me a draught of that potion."