Exhaustion had become a problem.
At the five-hour mark of their journey, Snape called a reluctant halt. His younger companions had been awake since the attack in the Dark Forest well over 24 hours ago, either standing vigil at Harry's bedside or feverishly combing the library for information. The constant tension of passing through ancient corridors filled with hidden traps had drained what little reserves they had left. Even their concern for Harry could not fend off fatigue, especially with the pace set by Professor Snape.
Neville immediately sank to the floor, wheezing and limp with exhaustion. Hermione, though not quite as bad, slid down the nearest wall. Snape paced off the last of his nervous energy then joined them.
The trio made a camp of sorts in a junction of corridors. They exchanged no words as they pulled food from the packs and began eating. The only sounds were the occasional snap of a crisp red apple skin and more subtle chewing sounds. In the absolute silence, even throat noises of swallowed food or water carried to every ear.
Neville fell asleep sitting up. Hermione took the time to settle more comfortably, using one of the packs as a pillow, but soon she too slipped into exhausted slumber. Snape remained awake, though whether because he simply could not rest or out of a desire to guard the students, even he couldn't say. With a sigh of exasperation, he settled Longbottom into a horizontal sleeping position and tucked both students' cloaks tight around them.
Once he's packed away the debris from their meal, he sat where he could best see all four branches of corridor. With his wand across his lap, he stood guard, watchful.
###
Severus Snape jerked awake. He groaned and kneaded at the crick that tied his neck and shoulders into painful knots. He straightened his spine, which crackled like castanets as the vertebrae settled into proper alignment. Snape tipped his arm to view his watch in the light from a nearby firepot--6:15. Hopefully in the morning. He hadn't intended falling asleep. He'd meant to wake the children at 5 o'clock and be on their way by a quarter past. An entire hour, wasted.
He heard a soft whimper. Snape studied Longbottom but found the boy motionless in deepest sleep. He shifted his attention toward Hermione. The teenaged girl shifted and twitched, caught in the throes of a night terror. In the light from the firepot, tear tracks on her temples and cheeks glistened like gold paint.
"This is all we need," Severus muttered as he stood up, "a nightmare to make the dark ahead of us even more horrifying."
Snape knelt beside Hermione, meaning to wake her. Before his hand reached her shoulder, she rocketed off the floor. Eyes wide in terror, Hermione searched frantically and screamed, "Harry! Where are you? Don't go! Harryyyyyyy!"
Neville bolted awake with his own cry, snatched from sleep by the noise. His hand fumbled for his wand, tangled in the folds of his robes.
"Calm yourself, Mr. Longbottom. It's only Ms. Granger waking from a nightmare. There's nothing to worry about."
"Nightmare?" Neville blinked like an owl, slowly, ponderously. He processed the news and turned to his year mate. "Hermione?"
The girl squeezed herself tight and struggled to adjust to the abrupt transition between dream world and waking world. With short, jerky breaths, she calmed her racing heart and willed away the tremors. She looked down, letting her long, bushy hair veil her face, until she once more had herself under control.
"I-I-I--I'm fine."
Snape eyed her with misgivings. "Ms. Granger?"
"I said I'm fine." She knelt and picked up the pack she'd used as a pillow. "Gather everything and let's get going. We're wasting time Harry doesn't have."
Snape took the pack from her and looped its straps over his left shoulder. With the second bag over his right, he motioned for both teens to precede him.
Hermione struggled between the urge to speak and the desire to stay silent. Silence won. Her cheeks awash with color, Hermione straightened her robes and trudged down the master passageway. Firepots burst into life at her approach, extending their visibility.
Neville shrugged at Snape--girls, who can understand them?--and followed.
###
"Stop."
At Longbottom's call, Snape and Hermione came to an immediate halt. The lesson of the disappearing floor had been well learned.
"What is it?" Hermione asked.
"I want to make sure I steer us right. I think . . . yes. This is the place where I first got lost," Neville admitted. "Two of these corridors lead to rooms. We need to take the third. I just have to remember which one was which. I got so turned around, took me hours to straighten myself out."
"These rooms, could you get into them?" she asked.
"Yeah."
Neville looked down each corridor and studied the marks in the dust left by his previous passage. Snape drew breath, most probably to either scold or urge speed. Hermione silenced him with a jerk of his sleeve and a warning headshake. Snape scowled at being shushed by a 15-year-old girl but chose to obey.
After a moment, Neville nodded, satisfied. He pointed straight ahead, along the corridor they'd followed from the beginning.
"Unless the stuff inside is invisible or hidden, the room down there is empty." He then pointed to the right. "The one down there looks like a laboratory, with potions equipment and such."
"Really," Snape said, eying the right-hand branch with interest.
"We don't have time for side trips," Hermione scolded.
Snape answered with his trademark scowl. "I am well aware of how little time we have, Ms. Granger. Even more than you, I imagine."
Though unrepentant, Hermione blushed from her collar to her hairline. Neville cringed on her behalf. Having made his point, Snape turned back to the left-hand corridor. A single set of footprints vanished into the darkness ahead.
"How far to the next trap?" the Potions Master asked.
"Around the next bend, about ten feet in." Even as Severus opened his mouth to ask his next question, Neville gave him the answer. "It's one of the dart traps."
Wand in hand, Severus Snape moved down the left-hand corridor, with its carved columns, diamond-patterned floors, arched ceiling, glowing firepots, and wall frescos. He stopped at the leftward bend in the passage, at the edge of the turn.
"Did you discover what activated the mechanism?" Snape asked. Neville shook his head. "Well, that isn't very helpful."
Hermione pinned the adult with a warning glare. She laid her arm around the dejected boy's shoulders and said, "It's all right, Neville. You've brought us this far and stopped us from getting lost just now. You even saved the Professor back at the pit. Don't worry. Between the three of us, we can figure it out."
Professor Snape observed the way ahead in the light of two freshly ignited firepots, paying careful attention to the walls on both sides. His initial examination found no difference between this and the corridors they had already traversed.
"I see no darts on the floor from your previous journey," Snape commented. "The castle must reclaim them in some way. From which direction did the darts come?"
Longbottom pointed straight up. "The ceiling."
"Not the walls?"
"No, sir. Only the ceiling."
Snape studied the arch of stone but saw no hint of ejection hole or slot. "How did you get past the first time?"
Color tinted the boy's cheeks. "Easy. I ran like hell, sir."
Snape ignored Hermione's giggles as he said, "I doubt that solution would work for all three of us. Wait here."
Snape left the children and stepped forward. His eye rested on the floor, on the variation in stone color. Unlike the other passageways, the diamond blocks along this brief section were darker by one or two shades. The difference was subtle, hardly noticeable unless one looked specifically for such a deviation.
"Here." He pointed to the area with his wand. Taking his call as tacit permission to approach, the Gryffindors hurried forward. Snape's outstretched arm let them proceed no further. "The floor in this section is a different color. Unless I am mistaken, stepping on the darker stones activates the mechanism."
Snape drew a large circle in the air and whispered a spell. In the area he'd outlined, air melted and hardened into an opaque, milky sheet some three centimeters thick. A thin ribbon of blue-white light connected the wand tip to the center of the sheet.
"Stay close beside me," Snape warned. "Hold tight to my robes if you must. Whatever happens, remain under the shield."
With the youths clinging close to his sides, Severus Snape moved forward, the outer face of his magical shield presented toward the deadly ceiling. The instant their feet touched the darker surface, magical holes appeared in the stone overhead. The darts--twisted wooden thorns between two and four centimeters in length--emerged with an explosive snap of air as though ejected by a hundred blowguns. The projectiles struck Snape's shield and bounced off in all directions.
The ceiling rained thorns. Within seconds the floor disappeared beneath a layer of sticks that crunched like tinder-dry twigs beneath their feet. When Hermione stepped on one such pile, it settled unexpectedly, twisting her ankle to the outside. In the brief instant when one arm flew out to correct her balance, a thorn ricocheted off the wall and sliced across the back of her hand.
Snape moved them forward at the safest possible pace. At the next intersection, the rain of thorns ended as quickly as it began.
Snape muttered, "Finite incantatum." The milky oval vanished.
"What spell was that, Professor?" Hermione asked as she dabbed at her stinging hand with the sleeve of her robes. "The one you used to create the shield."
"One you are far too young to learn," Snape said, his attention already on the way ahead. He moved several feet further down the passageway. "It hardens the air into a shield. Cast incorrectly, however, it can harden all of the air around you for a distance of two meters. Unless someone close by can nullify the spell, you would run out of breathable oxygen in a matter of minutes. Not a very healthy thing to have happen, wouldn't you agree?"
Hermione swayed, dizzy. Her throat felt tight. Breathing became distressingly difficult.
"Pro-Professor? I don't . . . feel so good."
The instant Neville caught Hermione's shoulders, she leaned against him, her legs refusing to bear her weight.
"Hermione! Professor Snape! Something's wrong with Hermione!"
Snape materialized directly before them and laid the back of his fingers against her face. Her forehead was fiery to the touch, her skin tight and dry. He immediately noted her gray complexion and labored breathing.
"Lower her to the floor," he ordered.
In seconds, the Potions Master found the red, swollen scratch to her right hand. Vivid red striations meandered up her forearm directly from the point of injury.
Snape snatched at Neville's robes. With great care, he unsnagged a dart that had lodged in the weave and sniffed at the tip. He threw away the dart and unshouldered one of the packs.
"Open that. Take out the bottle of jewelweed infusion."
As Longbottom hurried to comply, he asked, "What's wrong with her, sir?"
"You were far luckier in your first journey than you knew. The darts are poisoned."
TBC