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A/N: To my wonderful reviewers--THANK YOU!!! I appreciate you all! But...might I recall to your minds the ancient proverb that you attract better with honey than with vinegar? :)
Chapter 15"This is it," Hermione said. "We made it. The entrance to Rowena Ravenclaw's garden."
A brace of firepots, taller and more elaborate than any thus far seen, flanked the great doors. Their bowls, as large as the hearth in the Gryffindor Common Room, flared upon their approach. Silken webs curled and vanished in the rush of flame and heat. On each pedestal was carved a magnificent raven in flight, its talons resting on top an ancient variation of the Hogwarts crest.
However interesting the carving on the firepots, they faded to insignificance next to the great garden's entry doors.
Carved from solid stone yet so intricately mounted as to be manageable by a single person, the two panels formed an arch that rose two stories over their heads. Outside the borders, hidden behind curtains of cobwebs, images of every kind of land-based animal had been carved into the stone. The doors themselves were covered in all manners of fantastical creatures. A crown of seven soaring dragons graced their peak.
"Whoever designed this certainly wanted to make a statement," Hermione commented.
"You can admire the architecture some other time. Move back, both of you," Snape commanded. "I'm going to open the doors. Stand ready to deal with anything that might rush out."
Once the students had moved clear, Snape broke through a thin layer of silver webs, destroying months of industry by the castle spiders to repair the damage caused by Neville's last trip through the doors. The Potions Master grabbed the stone handle and pulled.
Bright sunlight poured through the opening. The trio blinked against the sudden, blinding illumination before their eyes adjusted. When nothing leaped forth to threaten them or challenge their entrance, Professor Snape signaled the students forward. They stepped over a raised stone sill and moved from dungeon-gloomy passages into an entirely different world.
"Merciful Merlin," Snape whispered as he stared along the stone-lined pathway to the gardens beyond.
Hermione swallowed, her eyes bright. "It's . . . too beautiful for words."
A landscape of circular beds disappeared into a fog-shrouded distance. Some were little more than boggy swamp or marsh pits that stank of decomposition and rot. Rolling meadows carpeted by brilliant flowers and bushes that bent under the weight of every-hued berries rested on ground level. Mesas as tall as a two-story building stretched toward a dome of clear glass. Toward what looked to be the center of the room stood trees taller than any they'd ever seen before, their tops invisible amidst clumps of fluffy, white clouds.
In the far distance toward their right loomed black storm clouds that dropped rain in solid sheets. Lightning flashed.
Behind them, the great doors closed, unnoticed.
"This room is so big," Hermione breathed, "you can't see the far walls . . . any of them."
"Stay on the pathways," Neville warned. Having been through the chamber once before, he shook off the thrall faster than his companions. Vivid memories of the room's hidden dangers dispelled any sense of innocent fairytale or harmless dreamscape. "You don't want to be standing half on a bed and half on the walkway when they shift around."
"How often do they make this change?" Snape asked.
"I didn't time them when I was last here," Longbottom admitted as he swatted away a swarm of gnats that fogged the air in front of his face, "but I'd guess around every half-hour or so." He pointed to the nearest bed, piled high with sweet-scented lilacs. "There it goes."
The garden shimmered, melted, and faded, like paint washed from a canvas. For one long moment, the chamber waited, suspended between stillness and motion. In the blink of an eye, the world around them reformed. Bogs became meadows. Fields changed to forests. Low beds transformed into to raised platforms.
Longbottom sighed. His shoulders slumped under the enormity of their task.
"Now all we have to do," he said, "is find one small grove of plants among thousands in a room that shifts without warning."
Hermione eyed the red patches on their exposed skin and recommended, "Before we do anything, we should treat our burns."
Hermione snatched the smaller of the two packs away from Snape. As she rooted through its contents, the Potions Master glared down on her and sniffed. "I suppose you have Burn-Be-Gone cream in there somewhere?"
"Of course. Here it--no, that's Frostbite-Be-Gone. I doubt we'll need that anymore but it never hurts to be prepared. Ah, here it is."
She held up a screw-top glass jar filled with amber cream. She dabbed the rose-scented cream on Snape's reddened flesh then applied it to the areas on Neville's face and neck. Without a word, Snape took the jar and treated Hermione's burns. Of the three, Snape had fared the worst; the thick aroma of roses wafted around him like a cloak of scent.
"If one of you cracks so much as a smile or makes a single joke," the Potions Master hissed, "I will turn you into a slug and squash you under my boot."
The Head of Slytherin House turned in a swirl of black robes and strode down the walkway. Behind him, the two students shared a single smothered giggle then trotted to catch up.
"Neville?" Hermione said. "Can you remember any of the beds that surrounded the one with Dawn's Glory? Maybe if we find them, the one we're looking for won't be far away."
"Sorry, no." He shook his head. "I wasn't looking at the beds. I just wanted to find a way out."
"Typical Gryffindor," Snape muttered, deliberately loud enough to be overheard. Neville's cringe and Hermione's frown bounced off his back without notice.
Movement caught Hermione's eye. Her hand darted toward the wand up her sleeve. She blinked and smiled. The wand remained in his holder, undrawn.
"Look," she cooed. "Oh, aren't they adorable?"
Snape and Longbottom followed her gesture. Three fluffy white rabbits crouched on a tiny knoll of one bed, timidly munching on clover. Large, luminous eyes followed their movements. The rabbits' ears wobbled, noses twitched, and bodies momentarily tensed for flight before the animals decided the humans posed no threat. They resumed dining on clover, though part of their attention remained on the three humans.
Something shot past Snape's head, so close as to pull out four greasy hairs. The trio caught a glimpse of auburn and gold feathers and outstretched talons before the raptor, a hawk of some sort, stooped down upon the rabbits.
Hermione Granger eeped and fell back, covering her eyes. Neville Longbottom swallowed bile and moaned. Severus Snape stared, mesmerized.
The three rabbits, so innocent and harmless, turned on the diving hawk. Before the bird more than squawked in surprise, the rabbits pinned it to the ground. With razor sharp teeth, they ripped away feathers and tore into the meat. Within seconds, blood stained their fluffy white fur a crimson red.
Neville turned away and vomited into the grassy verge.
"Let that be a lesson to us all," Snape said. "This room is dangerous and we would do well to remember that. Even the most harmless-seeming plant or animal is as likely to be deadly as docile."
"Somehow, Professor," Hermione cringed away from the sound of crunching bone and snapping teeth, "I don't see anything 'docile' surviving here for very long."
"Neither do I. Keep moving."
After they'd moved away from the grizzly feast, Hermione swatted at a mosquito and said mostly to herself, "One thing puzzles me."
"Only one?" Snape replied. "And what might that be?"
"However many insects and animals there might be, this chamber is most definitely intended to cultivate plants. Why all the traps? Disappearing floors, pits, poison darts, fire jets, and ice rivers. Surely they weren't put in place to protect a garden, even one as magnificent as this."
"Since Rowena Ravenclaw did not leave behind any hint of this room's existence, let alone her purpose in laying the traps, I'm afraid we may never know the answer. In the meantime, I suggest that we find the Dawn's Glory and return to the hospital wing as soon as possible."
The students trailed along behind the professor for several minutes before Hermione spoke again. Her voice was soft and hesitant, as though she both longed for and feared the answer. "How do you suppose Harry's doing?"
"By this point, I would say not well at all," Snape answered, uncaring of either students' feelings. "I'd be surprised if the pain hasn't driven him into a coma by now. I might even dare to guess that the curse has caused his skin to-"
"Professor." Neville glared at Snape hard enough to raise the Potions Master's eyebrows. Beside him, Hermione held herself and shuddered. Her eyes shone with tears. Longbottom hugged his yearmate and did his best to smile. "Harry'll be fine, Hermione. We'll get back in time. We will. We have to."
With a snuffle against his shoulder, Hermione nodded, stiffened her spine, and stepped down the path. As he trooped along after her, Neville whispered to Snape, for the first time in his life uncaring as to how he spoke to a teacher, "I-if you can't say anything positive, sir, with all respect you-you shouldn't say anything at all. I-I mean--this is hard enough without you or-or--someone voicing doomsayings."
"Are you daring to berate me, Mr. Longbottom?" Snape crooned, his voice velvet and venom.
Neville cringed but held stubbornly to his righteous indignation. "I'm only asking that you stop saying things that don't help us with what we're doing. Hermione doesn't need to know everything that's happening to Harry right now. It doesn't help but it definitely could hurt what we're doing here. That--that's all I'm asking, sir."
The beds chose that moment to make another switch. The trio regrouped at a juncture of pathways and paused a moment to study their new surroundings.
"It's like the plants that need the sun stay in the sunlight," Neville Longbottom noted, "and the beds that need shadow follow it around, too."
"You might well be right," Snape said. "At least, that is as good an explanation as an-"
Three wands came up as, in the near distance, a large cat screamed.
TBC