Title: Veneficus Serpens
Author: Sonya
Rating: R, for naughty language and bad things happening to cute little children.
Disclaimer: Anything you recognize, I don't own. Buffy the Vampire Slayer and all associated characters, settings, etc., belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, UPN, etc. Harry Potter and all associated characters, setting, props, etc., belong to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Inc., etc. No copyright infringement is intended, so please don't sue – all you'll get is a really bratty bird and some really spoiled rats.
Spoilers: Up to "Wrecked" in the Buffyverse, up to "Goblet of Fire" in the Potterverse.
Pairings: Willow/Snape, Hermione/Viktor Krum, Draco/Ginny, Fred/Angelina. Other 'ships to be decided.
Summary: Riot, mayhem, Willow with glowy eyes.
Author's Note: I've borrowed a term from Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time" here – namely "wilder". It means the same here as there (for those who don't read WoT, a wilder is a self-taught channeler of the One Power – or here, a self-taught witch.) There will be no other references to WoT and this is in no way turning into a three-way crossover, I just borrowed the term 'cause it fit. But anyway, it's Robert Jordan's, not mine.
* * *
Willow stumbled down the stairs into the common room of the Three Broomsticks. Overturned chairs and tables and shattered dishes littered the scrap of floor she could see from the stairway. Most of the screaming seemed to be coming from outside, though she thought she heard a faint whimpering that sounded closer, and something that sounded almost like .. hammering?
God, my heard hurts. I wonder if the wizarding world has heard of Advil.
She nearly slipped on a puddle of something that smelled sweet and alcoholic as she stepped into the room, grabbing a luckily still-upright table for support.
And, the sense of balance is not really on line yet either.
This had better not be an apocalypse. I am *so* not up to apocalypse speed now.
There was a blonde boy standing near the back of the room, looking down at something on the floor. The hammering had stopped.
"What happened?" Willow called out to the boy. His head whipped around as if she'd slapped him, huge eyes like a stunned deer meeting hers.
Did you pat its head?
Not now, something not of the good is going down here and I gotta stay with the present tense . . oh *god* my head hurts . .
"I didn't mean to!" the boy blurted in a terrified voice, backing away from whatever had so fascinated him on the floor. Willow picked her way carefully across the wrecked room towards him. He had a rather androgynous face that looked like it might turn handsome in a few years; she guessed he was about 14, though he sounded younger. "I didn't know what it meant, I swear I didn't! I didn't mean it!"
Okay, not liking the sound of that.
Didn't happen to say "I wish," didja?
"What didn't you – oh my God!" Willow blurted. It was a girl. He'd been staring at a girl, small, pale, and seizuring there on the floor. Her entire body was twitching, her hair making a faint rustling on the floorboards, the ends of it soaking up some of the spilled alcohol. Her eyes were open wide and staring sightlessly. Willow skidded to her knees beside the girl, grabbing for her wrist. She was too cold, and her pulse was thin, barely there. Her breathing was just shallow, rapid pants.
"I didn't mean to, I swear I didn't know what I was doing, I didn't mean to, I like her, she's friends with my brother, and I don't know where my brother is and I think they sent them after mudbloods and oh god, my father'd kill me if he knew I used that word, but it's what happened and I didn't mean to, I swear I didn't and it should have bitten me, it's all my fault, I didn't mean – "
Willow whipped around, slapping a hand over the boy's mouth. Tears trickled from his eyes onto her fingers.
"What bit her?" she asked as calmly as possible. The boy hiccupped, and stared. Willow sighed, and took her hand away from his mouth. He drew in a shaky breath. Was I *ever* like this? I think I did better than this, with my first vampire and all. I really think I did. "Look, I know you're freaking, and I get that, trust me. But if you want me to help her, I need to know what happened. In logical order. Without all the didn't-mean-to-ing. What bit her?"
"This," said a voice to her left. Another girl was standing there, looking a little older and far calmer than the boy, with dark eyes and a riot of dark hair around her grim face. She held up a heavy mug, with the remains of a small green snake squashed to the bottom of it. "They're not natural, the others disintegrated after a few moments, but they evidently stay solid if they're dead." Her eyes shifted to the girl on the floor; and she bit her lip, but otherwise showed no reaction. Okay, I'm not sure if I'm impressed or way creeped out. Hello to the jadedness.
"This will help, won't it?" she asked, thrusting the mug and dead snake towards Willow.
The din outside seemed to have moved away down the street, the screams still audible but distant. The seizuring girl's gasping was very loud in the still room.
My head hurts. I really wish my head would stop hurting.
"I didn't mean to," the boy whispered.
"Stop saying that, it's not your fault, Colin," the girl snapped. It lacked sincerity.
"Okay," Willow said, taking a deep breath, looking back to the girl on the floor. She looked paler, and she was still vibrating like a guitar string. But breathing. Breathing is good. Okay, poisoning. Magical poisoning. I can handle this. Come a long way since what happened to Angel. I can do this. "Okay. It's – Colin?" The boy nodded. "Okay, Colin. This is very important. I need you to go get help. Someone like – police? Do you have police?"
"Aurors," the girl supplied. "And I'm Hermione."
"I can do that!" Colin nodded readily.
"Good, go," Willow ordered, and turned to the girl as Colin ran off out the door. "Pleased to meet you, Hermione. Now let's see that squashed snake."
* * *
"Hogwarts students!" Severus Snape bellowed, trying to maintain his footing amidst the panicked rush of witches and wizards all trying to get off the street. He could barely hear his own voice above the commotion. Doors were slamming and being charmed shut; glass shattered somewhere behind him. Useless and pathetic, the lot of them, stampeding like cattle!
"Hogwarts st –urgh!" his shout cut off abruptly as a portly witch pushing a baby carriage in front of her like a battering ram crashed into his knees. He stumbled out of her way, his teeth snapping shut on his tongue in the process. Bloody stupid cow!
He had his wand out and pointed towards his throat, prepared to enhance his voice above the level of the general din, when a wizard somewhere to his left thundered out, "Tilly! Where are you!?" at god-like decibels. "Matilda!"
The idea was catching. Within seconds the already ear-splitting cacophony had turned literally deafening as tens of dozens of magically-enhanced voices screamed out the names of misplaced children and spouses. Severus grimaced, and tucked his wand back away.
The sky immediately above the crowd was rapidly turning into a haze of bright sparks, as people began to realize that shouting en mass wasn't working and decided that sending up flares, also en mass, might be a better tact. Idiots. Worthless, useless idiots.
A black-clad form went flying past him, in the opposite direction from the fleeing crowd – he reached out and grabbed its shoulder, spinning the student around. He expected, perhaps, a yelp or a scream or an attempt to struggle. What he got was a wand pointed determinedly in his face, by none other than Harry Potter.
"Expelli-oh," Potter cut off, lowering his wand. Ron Weasley came crashing and stumbling through the crowd and skidded to a stop next to Potter. Oh, what bloody *wonderful* luck.
* * *
Hermione bit her lip and handed the stranger the mug-with-crushed-snake, her eyes darting between the red-headed woman and Cassy's convulsively shivering form. The red-head's hand was shaking, and Hermione noted that her eyes were rimmed with dark, puffy circles.
Like she's been crying. And she's wearing muggle clothes.
Oh Lord, I hope I'm doing the right thing here. But she's the only adult about and I've never felt less like a grown-up in my life . . I wish Ron or Harry were here, they never worry about doing the proper thing at times like this, they just charge in as if it's never occurred to them that they could possibly be wrong or that Cassy could die if this isn't the right thing to do . .
"I know a spell that can determine the appropriate counter-curse if applied to the victim of a curse, but it's long and complicated and I don't have the ingredients," Hermione offered, feeling useless. "But perhaps we could make substitutions -"
"No time," the other girl shook her head, brow creased as she peered closely at the remains of the snake. "I recognize this."
"The curse?"
"The snake," she corrected, placing the mug carefully on the table. "She's got five minutes, maybe ten if she's having a real lucky day. And, also, if the poison isn't magically augmented, which I'm thinking it probably is."
"The snake?" Hermione repeated, frowning in confusion. "But –"
"Help me get her on a table," the woman ordered, already lifting Cassy's shoulders. Hermione hastily grabbed the girl's feet, and felt vicariously embarrassed when her skirt shifted up around her thighs. Oh, don't be an idiot, Hermione. She doesn't care about showing a little leg right now!
Lord she's cold, and her skin feels like it's trying to crawl off her body. I can feel her muscles twitching, under her skin. Oh, I'm going to have nightmares for the next dozen years about this.
I wouldn't want to die with my skirt all bunched up and showing my underwear.
She won't die! She *won't*.
This .. whoever this is .. she knows what she's doing. She recognized –
"What do you mean you recognized the snake?" Hermione asked, taking her hands away from Cassy's flesh as quickly as she could once the girl was safely on the center of the table. Cassy's shoes began pounding a rapid drum-beat on the wood; being moved seemed to have disturbed her, and her convulsions were growing more violent. Or else the poison is just progressing. Killing her. That tapping is going to drive me mad. Hermione grabbed onto the soles of the shoes, stilling Cassy's feet. Better. A little better. Not skin. "It's a curse. The snake doesn't exist. I mean, not really."
"Well, it existed long enough to bite her," the woman retorted, biting her lip. Don't do that, Hermione thought, I do that when I'm nervous about something and you can't be nervous. You need to know what you're doing or Cassy's going to die. "I don't know how it works but I think it must be some sort of transference spell. The snakes were real – as evidenced by the dead and oh so squashed one. They must have been magicked in here and then magicked out again, hence the disappearing."
"So – it's not a magical poison?" Hermione asked worriedly. "It's not a curse? It's just –"
"Real live, very deadly snake venom," the redhead finished for her. "Dendraspis angusticeps, to be exact, commonly known as the Green Mamba, which is kinda amusing 'cause it sounds like mambo, and you know, funny dance, deadly snake - it's hysterical in all situations that aren't this one. My guess is whatever nasty did this, it wanted you wasting your time on counter-curses and magical fixes, all the while she'd be dying of purely natural causes."
"So what can we do?" Hermione tried not to wail. It almost worked. "I don't know anything about magical healing of *mundane* injuries, I'm taking that next term! We need to get her to help, a real mediwitch or – or maybe Colin will come back with help –"
"No time," the woman snapped, still worrying her lower lip between her teeth and looking quite pale and haggard. Her brow was furrowed in intense concentration. "The poison needs to come out of her. Now."
Suddenly the screams outside, which had been growing fainter, reached a pitch and a volume that made the mug, still lying on the table with the dead dendraspis angusticeps mashed to the bottom of it, shake its way off the table to clatter to the floor.
* * *
Dozens of magically augmented voices all screaming simultaneously was not something Harry ever wanted to hear again. Nor was being shoved hard into Snape's chest by the suddenly beyond-hysterical mob an experience he was looking to repeat any time soon. Or any time distant. Or any time *ever*. Eugh!
Harry picked himself hastily up off the ground, brushing non-existent dirt from his robes with great enthusiasm and grimacing. Having learned from hard experience he instantly checked to see that his wand was intact, and still tucked into his pocket where he'd put it moments before. Then he noticed that Snape had not moved; he was still sprawled inelegantly on the ground staring up into the sky. His face bore an expression Harry didn't think he'd ever seen on anyone before, much less on Snape. It was an odd and disconcerting blend of fury and defeat, anguish and resignation. Harry followed his gaze upward.
The Dark Mark leered down on them, made indistinct and surreal by the haze of falling snow.
Several things occurred to Harry in rapid succession. Snape would not have, being Snape, attended the Quidditch World Cup. Therefore, he would not have seen the Dark Mark in the sky that night.
Therefore, this is the first time he's seen it in 14 years.
He's been a spy for Dumbledore for longer than that. I believe that now. Seeing how he is now, I believe that.
He must feel like everything he's done was a waste.
For a moment, Harry Potter actually felt sorry for Severus Snape.
It was a brief moment; in the next instant there was a sharp tugging at his sleeve and a frantic female voice screaming, "Harry, Harry! Dennis needs help!"
Ginny Weasley had Dennis Creevey draped awkwardly half across her thin shoulders, and her face was nearly purple with a combination of exertion and tears. Dennis was twitching and flailing as if caught in the Crutiatus, his eyes wide and unfocused.
"Ginny!" Ron exclaimed in fervent relief, rushing towards his sister, and stopping short when he saw Dennis. "Bloody fucking hell!"
"Ten points from Griffindor for use of foul language!" Snape barked out, wrenching Dennis out of Ginny's grasp and swinging the slight boy up over his shoulder as if he weighed nothing. Guess he got over his shock, the bloody wanking git.
"You've got to be bloody kidding me! Ron exploded. "How can you –"
"Shut UP, Weasley!" Snape roared. Ginny started sobbing hysterically. Snape pulled out his wand, his movements made awkward by the seizuring boy occupying his other arm, and pointed it at a mangled cauldron that had been part of a storefront display before it encountered the panicked mob. He shouted a spell Harry didn't recognize, and the cauldron transformed into a – broom?
Snape grabbed the broom and thrust it at Harry.
"Get Dumbledore! NOW!" he ordered. "Weasley, other Weasley – oh, STOP THAT, girl, it makes your face even blotchier!"
Harry blinked.
Snape just told me to get Dumbledore.
Snape just trusted me with an important task.
"IS YOUR HEARING DEFICIENT, POTTER? I SAID NOW!"
Harry mounted the broom and took off for Hogwarts.
* * *
The door to the Three Broomsticks had been kicked out and lay discarded in the vacant street, the mob having fled to the outskirts of town by the time Severus Snape reached the inn. There was a broken chair laying next to the door; to all appearances the place was empty. Maybe this will teach Dumbledore to trust the students to keep their heads in an emergency. 'We mustn't deprive them of their Hogsmeade weekends, Severus, it would be unfair. Life must go on, Severus. If there is any trouble, children, just assemble at the Three Broomsticks and wait for a professor to arrive.'
Ha bloody ha.
And if the disturbance encompasses the Three Broomsticks, children, please scatter to the four winds like startled pidgeons. And did I mention, Severus, that I'll be back in my study pouring deep thoughts into my pensive while the children are seizuring and drooling all over *you*, Severus?
And where in the bloody fucking hell, to quote Mr. Weasley, are the Aurors? They shot up the Dark Mark, for Merlin's sake! Where is the Ministry?
Snape stepped in a soup tureen and nearly tripped, swearing loudly and trying desperately to balance himself without dropping the twitching child flung over his shoulder. Someone gasped at his outburst.
The common room wasn't as empty as he'd thought; at a table near the back corner he saw Granger, in her shirtsleeves, tucking her robes around an unconscious blonde girl he didn't recognize. Granger's sweater was pillowed under the girl's head, and a red-headed woman in muggle clothing was pulling the girl's eyelids back and peering closely at her eyeballs.
"Professor Snape! Oh, Dennis!" Granger exclaimed. He couldn't quite tell which exclamation sounded more distraught. The muggle-looking girl glanced up, saw the boy Snape was holding, and strode purposefully across the room towards them. Granger followed her.
"Someone should go fetch Colin back," Granger said, looking like she might cry. "He was so worried about his brother, he'll feel just –"
"Put him on the table," the red-head with the dark eyes and the very pale lips ordered, cutting Granger's rambling off and nervously wiping her hands on the sides of her muggle jeans.
Excuse me?
"And who the bloody hell are you?" Severus demanded. Granger cringed, biting her lip. The older girl's head snapped up indignantly, meeting his gaze.
"The one in charge!" the witch snapped back; it was suddenly very obvious she was a witch. Her eyes were glowing with an unearthly fire and her voice had echoed in a way that normal human voices don't. Her hair was moving just slightly about her face; to the casual observer, it might have appeared to stir in a slight wind. Severus knew better; it was energy. Little shocks of power making the strands jump like electricity along copper wires. He gaped.
Of all the arrogant, presumptuous, interfering . .! I will not be spoken to that way! screamed the greater part of his brain.
But a small sliver of something within him was just awed. Magnificent. Merlin, she's just .. magnificent.
Or perhaps not such a small sliver, he realized an unsettling moment later. The boy was laying on the table; he didn't properly remember putting him there.
"He looks the same," Granger commented, bending worriedly over the small shivering form, pressing the back of her hand to the boy's forehead. "He's cold."
"Is the same," the other witch said, her voice distant, her fingertips skimming lightly over the child's form, then settling palm down over his heart. Her eyes were no longer glowing, and her thin, pale lips were pursed in obvious effort.
Hands. No wand, Severus observed, his unease growing. Wandless wizards are almost always wilders. Almost always dark.
Not that he had much use for cavorting about with a wand, looking like a damned conductor at a muggle orchestra. And not that my distaste for wandwork is any evidence if favor of wandless wizards. And what the bloody hell is she doing? Whatever it was, it was making the boy's body twitch and his veins bulge. Her hand was held tense and claw-like with such force that her own veins were pulsing visibly beneath her near-translucent skin. It looked as though she was trying to crush something invisible, or perhaps grasp something that did not want to be held.
She was muttering under her breath, things that sounded rather like threats and curses. "Don't think so, bitch!" she hissed almost inaudibly. Her eyes were clenched shut, and her breathing was growing rapidly louder and more strained.
Poison, Severus realized abruptly. It's not a curse, it's poison, some kind of neurotoxin, and she's gathering it, pulling it out of his blood.
They used real snakes.
How did she know?
And how long would Poppy or any other mediwitch have spent trying to counter a curse that didn't exist, while the mundane poison did its work?
Clever. His mouth twisted in a sour grimace. Very clever.
The boy's body suddenly arched, his breath hitching in a way that was painful to hear. He started shuddering so violently Severus found himself taking an instinctive step forward, ready to catch the body if the boy thrashed his way off the table. Or perhaps not so entirely mundane a poison. It's fighting her.
Probably charmed to do just that, some nasty little catch that ups the potency if anyone tries to interfere.
Wheels within wheels. Just the bastard's style.
But so very clever.
The boy's going to die. Him and how many more?
"No!" the witch snapped out, reaching out with her other hand to pin him down onto the table. He lay there, limp, his chest still. "Little more, come on, hang in there kid, just a little more," she grated out between clenched teeth.
"It's alright," Granger whispered, in what he supposed she thought was a reassuring tone. It sounded distinctly terrified to him. But then, you've got an ear for that, don't you? "It's alright, it was like this with Cassy too."
Did I look like I needed reassuring? Bloody hell, am I that transparent?
"I have seen the procedure before, Miss Granger," Snape said acidly, trying to cover his discomfiture. Of course, at the time, it was Anton LeStrange extracting all the water from a muggle's blood, and it ended in agonized death. Followed closely by consumption of much firewhiskey, and me banging the hell out of Narcissa Malfoy. Of course, she wasn't Malfoy yet, then. "Is there perhaps something useful you could be doing?"
"Well –" she began hesitantly.
"Well?" he mimicked nastily, trying to squash the vivid memories of his past back into their usual dark corner. With the distant sounds of the panicked mob still echoing in off the street and the red-headed witch muttering like a madwoman over the now twitching and contorting body of the poisoned boy, it wasn't working very well. "What? Granger has nothing to say? Surely you've read all about handling situations like this."
She was saved from answering by the red-haired witch's triumphant shout. Snape whipped back around, saw her holding a writhing globe of liquid about the size of a pea, just above her palm. She murmered something, and the venom burst into sickly yellow flame, burnt away, and was gone. The redhead sagged then, bracing herself on the table, looking like she could barely stand.
The boy lay there peacefully, and though he was still pale and drawn, his chest was rising and falling in a steady rhythm. He frowned slightly in his sleep.
"Gotta be an easier way to do that," the witch muttered fervently.
Magnificent.
"They'll both require a restorative potion, Granger!" Snape barked. "Fetch me anything of use from the kitchen."
"Madam Rosmerta charmed it shut," the girl said hesitantly. "It's locked."
"So *un*lock it, Granger!" he shouted. "I know you're not above breaking and entering!" For a moment her eyes flared with indignation, and she seemed on the verge of protest, but then the redhaired witch shakily righted one of the overturned chairs and collapsed into it with a groan. Hermione cast a worried look in her direction, then a very pointed glare at Snape – I am *not* doing this because you told me, I'm doing it for *her*! that look snapped – and ran for the kitchen, wand out. Madam Rosmerta's locking charm lasted all of four seconds.
That one could be very dangerous if she had any mind to be.
"So," the redhead said conversationally. "Is this a typical Tuesday for you too?"
Severus blinked at her; she was sitting there with the boy's wrist in her hand, monitoring his pulse with her fingertips, quirking an eyebrow at him as if she found the whole situation darkly amusing.
"It's Saturday," he answered.
And then a dozen Aurors burst through the door.