Chapter Twenty-Seven - Snakebite
Harry put his finger to his lips as the three of them began to creep toward the stairs, wands out and at the ready. He hadn't been here since he had followed Sirius and Ron inside in his third year. He gripped his wand tightly at the thought of Sirius, he was going to see Pettigrew again and he hated that cowardly bastard for betraying his childhood friends the way he had done, but this wasn't about revenge. He had to concentrate on destroying Nagini and let Ron deal with his old pet himself.
They reached the top of the stairs and Harry tried to see if he could see either of their intended targets through a crack in the rickety old door. There was nothing. He swallowed and glanced down at Ron and Hermione who were looking anxiously back up at him. They listened for several seconds and heard nothing. Harry didn't like this at all but he wasn't getting anything done just hiding at the top of a flight of stairs so he stepped up onto the landing and winced as the floorboards groaned noisily.
"Shhhh!" Ron hissed to him.
Harry glared at him and mouthed the words 'I didn't do it on purpose' before edging along the wall towards the flimsy door. Ron and Hermione were right behind him and Harry paused by the doorframe and nodded the count of three to them before diving inside, wand raised, and spun around ready for an ambush.
There was nothing.
"So the tracker was wrong then?" Ron asked with a cautious frown.
"I don't know," Harry whispered, still prepared for attack, "it was leading us to something so I don't know why it's completely empty in here."
"You're right Harry," Hermione said, she looked incredibly tense as her eyes darted around the room, "it's too quiet in here."
"You little bastard," Ron whispered as he crouched down and pointed his wand under the furniture, "get out here you little bastard."
"This is a trap," Harry said fearfully.
Ron looked up at Harry, his eyes wide as an idea struck him all of a sudden.
"Traps..." he smiled to himself before swishing his wand across the floor and hissing "Orno traps!"
The entire floor was covered in mouse traps, set and waiting to snap shut around the neck or any other body part a certain rat might accidentally put into it. Hermione looked at Ron proudly and pointed her own wand at the bed in the centre of the room.
"Wingardium leviosa!"
The bed lifted, a fearful squeal sounded as the limited light in the room highlighted the cowering form of Ron's old pet rat surrounded by mouse traps and shaking with terror, and Ron pointed his wand at the scruffy rodent with the silver paw.
"Stupefy!"
The rat jumped and tried to negotiate his way between the traps as they snapped to his left and right. Ron and Harry threw more curses at it but somehow he managed to evade them and the traps until one caught the silver paw and Ron bent down and grabbed the rat up off the floor where it struggled to get free.
"Gotcha!" he said victoriously.
Harry was about to help Ron give Pettigrew his dues when a huge snake lowered itself down from the rafters in the ceiling in front of him and he fell backwards onto the floor to avoid being bitten. Unfortunately the floor was full of still un triggered mouse traps and he felt several sharp pains along the back of his legs and on his buttocks, even three of his fingers were caught in a couple of traps, and heard Hermione throw an immobilising spell at the snake that had just appeared from the attic.
This had momentarily distracted Ron and Pettigrew took the opportunity to turn into his human form while still in Ron's hand. Ron pointed his wand at the wizard he now had hold of by his stringy hair but Wormtail was too quick for him and backhanded Ron out the door with his silver hand. Hermione screamed and Wormtail pulled the trap from his silver fingers and threw it down to the floor with a grin.
"Well that was easy," he sneered, "who's next?"
As Wormtail raised his wand at Harry Ron leapt back into the room and onto his back.
"I've got him, kill the snake!" he hollered as the two of them wrestled back out onto the landing.
Harry and Hermione didn't have a hell of a lot of other options seeing as the snake hung between them and the door. They raised their wands and tried to ignore the loud crashes and flashes of light outside the room.
"Nusquam esse!" Harry ventured, he wasn't sure that the spell would really work even if he managed to hit Nagini with it, which he didn't, and tried another spell to obliterate the snake from existence, "Leto!"
There was an alarmingly loud crash outside now and Hermione ran at the snake screaming a destruction spell so she couldn't miss.
"Dirvo!"
She seemed to have achieved something as Nagini uncoiled her tail from the rafter she was hanging from and thudded to the floor. She carried on past the snake and stopped at the open door, turning around to cover the snake from the other side as Harry pointed his wand down at it and repeated Hermione's spell.
"Dirvo!"
He hit Nagini square between the eyes but she seemed only to be dazed at the most.
"Ron, are you alright out there?" Hermione called out the door, not taking her eyes off the snake for a second.
"Fine," Ron yelled from what sounded like downstairs somewhere before swearing and his voice being drowned out by a smashing sound, "duel like a man you bloody coward!"
Hermione's eyes darted out of the door briefly and widened before looking back at the snake.
"What is it?" Harry asked as he searched his brain for something that would penetrate the snake's scales.
She swallowed and winced slightly as if she was imagining what she had missed seeing in her head.
"The banister's gone, they must've fallen right through it and to the ground floor."
"Sepelio!" Harry bellowed and watched as his spell struck Nagini and made the snake smoulder slightly and rise up, hissing fiercely, "Oh crap, I think I just made her angrier."
The snake slithered rapidly toward Harry, who jumped up onto the bed and threw several restraining charms at her but missing most of them in his panicked state, and Hermione ran forward and aimed her wand at the centre of Nagini's body and yelled over more sounds of battle from downstairs.
"Caedo!"
Nagini's reared head fell with a heavy thud onto the floorboards, she seemed temporarily woozy and Harry and Hermione looked at each other with excitement, this was their best chance to hit her with something together.
"Captivas!" Hermione yelled and Harry looked to her for further instruction, she did have the widest vocabulary of spells after all, "We need to strike her, you know the violent strike curse Harry?"
"Everbero," he nodded.
"We'll do that on three with letaliter, that should make it fatal."
"Sounds good to me."
Hermione began to count as Nagini began to stir.
"One...two..."
Where the third count should have been there was nothing but the sound of Ron screaming at the top of his lungs. Hermione's eyes were wide and terrified.
"Three," Harry finished the count for her as he knew she had her mind downstairs right then and it seemed to snap her out of it as they both drew their wands back and flicked them at the snake in perfect unison, "Everbero let..."
The sounds of crashing yelling and splintering wood grew louder at an unsettling rate and Ron's body suddenly dragged up the stairs and slammed into the last remnants of the banister on the landing before being hurled through the door. Ron looked pretty beaten-up as his fingers curled around the doorframe and he roared at Hermione with wild eyes.
"What the hell are you doing? I almost had him!"
She spun around to stare at her boyfriend as he struggled against an invisible pull, his knuckles white from gripping the crumbling doorframe so tightly, and didn't seem to understand what was happening.
"Take it off!" Ron pleaded as he lost his hold on his temporary anchor and hooked his now bleeding fingers around a loose floorboard.
Hermione seemed shaken and Ron was immediately released from the Hermione centred gravity and managed to pull himself up off the floor.
"What the hell did you do that for?" Ron snapped before turning his head on hearing the sound of the front door being flung open, "Oh no you don't," he growled as he raced back down the stairs after the fleeing Wormtail.
"I'm sorry," Hermione called after him, "I didn't mean to, I didn't know!"
Harry was about to say something along the lines of I told you so to Hermione but the thought was soon banished from his head when he looked down and saw that Nagini was no longer immobile at his feet. She was, in fact, completely gone altogether.
"Oh great, where'd she go?"
Hermione dropped to her hands and knees to look under the bed and various tables and chairs, her focus returning to the matter at hand.
"Is that her or is it an old belt?" she squinted as she leaned in to the shadows beneath the window frame.
Harry was about to light his wand when the snake shot out at Hermione, fangs bared, and nicked her across the back of her wand hand. She squealed in shock and tumbled backwards, trying to push herself away from the attacking serpent with her feet as she cradled her bleeding hand in her healthy one. Harry aimed a stunning spell at Nagini but she slithered away from it and struck out at Hermione once again, both fangs penetrating Hermione's calf muscle deeply. She screamed and, for want of anything better to do at that moment, stabbed the snake in the eye with her wand tip.
Nagini reeled in shock and Harry dragged Hermione out of her reach.
"Hermione? Oh Merlin Hermione what should I do?" Harry garbled in panic.
"She's disorientated, let's try again," she said through what sounded like considerable pain, "one...two...three...Everbero letaliter!"
"Everbero letaliter!" Harry said at the same time.
Both spells hit Nagini in the same spot at the same moment and she hissed and coiled up into a night spring, writhing and hissing with both eyes forced shut now. Harry flicked his wand firmly at the centre of the tight coil, the top of Nagini's diamond shaped head, and used the last destructive spell he could think of that wasn't an unforgivable curse.
"Annullo!"
The snake flinched and lay still. Harry kept his wand aimed firmly down at her, not quite trusting his own skill as a killer to relax, and stared at the immobile snake until he heard a sigh and a dull thud behind him. He turned and saw that Hermione had passed out. He was about to reach out for her when he heard a yell and a body smashed through the window above Nagini's dead body and slammed down at Hermione's side, it was Ron.
"Whattahell?" Ron wheezed as the air left his lungs and he began to sputter to breathe in again.
"Ron are you alright?" Harry said as he scanned his friend's body and saw that he quite clearly wasn't.
Ron was almost lying on top of Hermione and tried to roll off her but didn't seem to be able to do so.
"What did I tell you?" he said, his voice still strained from both the winding and the shock at being magically pulled through the air and smashing through a first floor window, "Take it off I said, why didn't you bloody liste..."
Ron stopped in mid rant when he saw her laying pale and still at his side.
"Hermione?" he said with a gentle shake of her shoulders, "Min?" Ron looked up and met Harry's eyes, "Did I hit her when I came through?"
Harry shook his head and swallowed.
"She's been bitten, Nagini bit her on the leg, she summoned you after she..." Harry couldn't complete his story and looked down.
Ron's eyes looked down at Hermione's bleeding leg and then drifted along the floor to the dead snake beneath the shattered window before looking back down at Hermione who was lying in his arms.
"Hermione...can you hear me?" Ron's voice was so small, Harry watched in uncomfortable silence as Ron started to shift uncomfortably and his face contorted into an increasingly concerned state of panic, his pained eyes looked up at Harry and he said breathlessly, "I can't let her go Harry."
"You won't have to Ron, we're so close to Hogwarts, we can take her through the marauders tunnel and get her to Madame Pomfrey. She'll be fine I promise."
Ron shook his head and swallowed.
"No I mean she won't let me let her go."
Ron seemed to be fighting to pull away from her but she was dragged along with him. Harry grabbed at Ron's arms and tried to pry him away from her but it was as if his two best friends were welded together. Harry thought fast.
"Carry her," he said, "you can carry her."
Ron seemed to be about to lift her before he huffed and shook his head desperately.
"I can't move my legs."
Harry didn't know what to suggest. He stood up and paced a couple of times before stopping at the window and looking out at Hogwarts castle in the distance.
"I'll go and get help, you wait here with her and I'll bring someone," Harry said with a determined resolve before a flash of panic hit him, "wait, did Pettigrew get away, I don't want to leave you like this if he's still lurking somewhere?"
Ron didn't look at Harry, he couldn't really tell where his sombre friend was looking as he spoke, and he seemed to visibly darken before Harry's eyes.
"Pettigrew's dead."
Harry gave a single nod and left it at that.
"Ok I'll go, I'll be as fast as I can and..."
"No wait," Ron said as he looked Harry in the eye, "let me just try something first."
Harry crouched down beside the two of them and listened as Ron leaned in to Hermione's ear and whispered to her.
"Hermione? Hey Min, can you hear me? I need you to let me move ok? Can you let me move a little please?"
Harry watched as Ron grimaced as he tried to lift her to no avail.
"Please babe," he pleaded with a desperate sigh, "I won't let you go I promise, I'll be holding you all the time I swear, I just want to be able to carry you ok?"
Ron looked up and locked eyes with Harry and shook his head. Harry gave him an encouraging nod. If she could pull him through a first floor window in a state of unconsciousness then she could certainly let him lift her up and carry her to safety.
"Hermione I just want to move my legs that's all I need, just let me move my legs please," Ron said with a shudder in his voice.
Harry didn't know if it was that Hermione was coming round of if it was the sound of Ron seeming so upset but he saw his friend's foot twitch and Ron let out a sigh of great relief.
"Thank you," he whispered before looking to Harry, "can you help me up mate?"
Harry grabbed Ron's elbow and heaved him up as Ron fought to get his footing and lift Hermione at the same time. He stumbled slightly and Harry grabbed him around the shoulders and steadied him.
"Are you ok?" he asked Ron without hiding his concern.
Ron somehow managed to smile at him.
"Yeah, other than flying through a window, I'm fine."
"Fine?" Harry pressed.
Ron looked him in the eye and nodded.
"Really."
That was good enough for him and he picked up the dead snake, hauling it over his shoulder and lighting his wand tip, before catching Ron's slightly disgusted look.
"What do you want to bring that thing for?"
"Well it might help Madame Pomfrey and I also want to give it to Fred and George to be absolutely sure that the horcrux side of her is destroyed too."
Ron nodded and they set off back down the stairs and to the secret tunnel of the marauders.
"Madame Pomfrey! Somebody!" Harry yelled as he burst through the doors of the hospital wing.
"What on earth...?" Madame Pomfrey blustered as she appeared from her side room in her dressing gown, "...Mr Potter? What are you doing here?"
Before Harry could respond he saw her eyes widen with shock, she'd obviously seen Hermione in Ron's arms and she shoved him aside while letting out an urgent yelp.
"Don't drop her!" Harry turned in time to see Ron's legs giving way beneath him and the exhausted redhead crumpling to the floor, still cradling the unconscious Hermione in his arms, "Here, give her to Potter and we'll set her on one of the beds."
Ron shook his head. Harry tried to explain.
"He can't put her down, she won't let him."
"What do you mean she won't let him?" Madame Pomfrey scowled at Harry as if he was talking gibberish.
Harry pointed to the hoops around Ron and Hermione's arms and he saw that the older woman knew exactly what he meant but Harry said it anyway.
"It's the bond of blood, she can control him."
The woman turned to him, looking livid.
"Who did this to them? That is illegal magic you know?"
"Look," Ron suddenly snapped, "can we discuss our law breaking after you save Hermione please? She's been bitten by a bloody snake."
"Right, Potter, help me get him to his feet and over to the nearest bed."
They lifted Ron and had to practically drag him over to the bed, he really had gone to jelly what with going straight from a battle to the death into a long walk with a dead weight.
No not dead weight, don't say that.
"Get him something to sit on before he falls down," Madame Pomfrey said as Ron rested Hermione on the bed and did a half-squat, half-kneel at her bedside, his arms still firmly clamped around her.
Harry pushed a chair underneath Ron and helped him into it, he saw in the clinical light of the hospital wing that Ron was quite cut up from his journey through the windowpane.
"Do you need anything Ron?" he asked as Madame Pomfrey busied herself pouring potions down Hermione's throat and casting spells on her hand and leg.
Ron smiled tiredly and looked as if he was about to respond with his standard ' I'm fine ' before meeting Harry's eyes and letting his guard down completely.
"Actually my back is killing me."
Harry looked at Madame Pomfrey, eager to be instructed, and she nodded into her potions bag at her side.
"There's a cream in a round blue jar, spread it along his spine, you've got to rub it in deep though understand?"
Harry nodded and rummaged in the bag, pulling out the jar and holding it up to confirm that he had the right one. After being given the nod he pulled Ron's jumper up his back and began to smear the cream all the way up his vertebrae. Ron let out a sigh before chuckling weakly.
"What?" Harry asked as he began to massage the cream deep into Ron's skin.
"It's just that I'd ordinarily feel weird about you doing this but it just feels so much better that I don't care."
Harry let himself laugh too. He could've sworn that he saw a small smile appear on Madame Pomfrey's lips too.
"So will she be alright?" Harry asked anxiously.
"I have managed to stop her deteriorating any further, I notice you brought the snake Mr Potter, well done, I'll extract some of the venom and brew an antidote within minutes and then she'll be well on her way to a full recovery."
Ron seemed to relax even more on hearing this. It didn't last too long though as the doors burst open and McGonagall stormed in.
"Poppy what on earth is going on? Potter, Weasley...oh my goodness what happened to Miss Granger?"
Harry pulled down Ron's jumper and wiped the residual cream from his hands onto his jeans.
"Professor McGonagall we were in Hogsmede and Hermione got hurt and we needed to get her help immediately and..."
"Weasley!" McGonagall snapped, her eyes almost bulging out of her head, "That is not what I think it is around your arm is it?"
Ron let out a sigh and looked at the floor wearily.
"It was necessary," Harry began, "well in the beginning it was."
"And now?" she glared at him accusingly.
Harry didn't want to betray Hermione while she was in no fit state to defend herself, especially not to Ron, so he took a step forward and lowered his voice.
"She's kind of hooked on using them on him, that's why he can't let go of her now, she wants him with her professor."
McGonagall looked shocked.
"Miss Granger is the one in control?"
Harry nodded.
"Well I would have thought she knew better than to go through with such a binding as this. The bond of blood is infamous for the binder's obsession with control when in frequent use. Why on earth did you do this in the first place?"
Harry looked to Ron who was watching Madame Pomfrey administer the antidote to Hermione and sitting a lot more comfortably than he had been before the application of the cream.
"I can't tell you Professor, I'm sorry."
"You will tell me Potter, the three of you are trespassing in my school and receiving treatment from my staff, now what does Weasley need such a powerful form of restraint for."
Harry shook his head again.
"I'm sorry but I can't tell you, it will put his life at risk if too many people know, I swore to his mother."
"Molly knows about this?" McGonagall blinked and Harry nodded, "Well I suppose I should send her an owl informing her of this latest development."
"But professor..."
"Her clock Potter, she'll see he's in hospital and be frantic, I have to put her mind at rest."
Harry nodded and watched as the new headmistress of Hogwarts turned and left the hospital wing.
"Mr Potter," Madame Pomfrey spoke softly as she rested her hand on his shoulder, "I've done everything I can for now, she'll be fine and Mr Weasley has already dropped off himself so if you wanted to take one of the spare beds...?"
Harry looked over to Hermione's bed where Ron rested his head on Hermione's chest, fast asleep with his arms still curled around her, and he smiled.
"Thanks, I'd appreciate that."
Madame Pomfrey packed away her potions bag and returned to her side room, turning off the light, Harry thought for a moment and aimed his wand at Ron.
"Sopor!" he hissed as quietly as he could.
Ron's head lifted and Harry whispered out to the hospital wing in general.
"We got Nagini, he's really tired, please let him sleep tonight?"
Harry waited and looked over at Ron who stared across the hospital wind at one of the moonlit windows.
"Thank you," Ron whispered so softly that Harry wondered if he had imagined it before his head dropped back down and Ron's deep sleep resumed.
Harry smiled and let his own eyes fall closed.
Riddle's diary...destroyed; Hufflepuff's cup...destroyed; Nagini...destroyed; Slytherin's ring...destroyed; the locket...destroyed.
All he had left to do was work out how to destroy the penultimate horcrux before Voldemort himself.
Fawkes.