Potions: What would a Girl do without it?
By Slave4severus
Disclaimer: I do not own any of JKR's work….does anyone ever read these disclaimers?
Disclaimer B: My Beta, Mysticsong, would like to advise you NOT to eat or drink while reading this chapter. I have no idea why she would say that.
With breakneck speed, Alanna passed through the dark, shaded trees, venturing further into the green gloom of the thickly lined forest. The broom was truly amazing! She felt as if she were floating on air, her only grip on reality the firm grasp she had around its handle. Thankfully, it turned with the lightest of touches so she could fully concentrate on the task at hand.
Beech tree. Right.
Oak. Left.
Pine. Right.
Sycamore. Left.
The further she travelled into the heart of the forest, she was forced to reduce her speed and height greatly; winding her way through thickly knotted brambles and knotgrass, catching her robes, hair, and slicing through exposed skin.
Here, the trees grew so closely that it was turning as dark as twilight and winding around them became cumbersome and dangerous. Alanna's robed arms and legs were soon covered in small cuts and scratches that stung fiercely. She did not dare rise above the trees, afraid that the Headmaster would have sent out a search party of professors by now to get her to come back.
No. She would be safer in here for now.
The gloom in the forest was so deep that she could hardly see anything in front of her other than the next two trees in her vicinity. Squinting slightly she flew on, her speed and height considerably lessened by the untamed overgrowth.
The minutes passed into what felt like hours, a dull throb developing behind her eyes from intense concentration.
I wonder if I am going in the right direction.
The small lapse in focus was all it took; the Firebolt swerving too far to her right. Alanna let out a yelp of pain as her hair tangled in a thick patch of brambles, unseating her ungracefully. She fell at least two meters toward the ground, connecting with the forest floor harshly, and knocking the wind out of her.
She lay gasping for breath, her eyes closed while her body took inventory of her injuries. In fact, the only thing that really hurt was her scalp. Alanna rubbed where her hair had caught, cursing the shrubbery for loosing more than a few strands of hair. Her body ached from the impact but seemed otherwise unharmed, lifting herself off of the ground and into a standing position with effort, leaning heavily on Draco's broom.
The spinning sensation soon passed and she straightened. Although she needed rest desperately, Alanna was afraid to linger so close to the castle, in fear of being caught. Desperation drove her onward on foot, too disoriented and bruised to mount the broom for now.
The forest became darker by the minute and deathly quiet, the animals having drawn back, ceasing all activity; not even the birds were singing. Alanna moved on with trepidation, searching for a clearing in order to remount the broom, her footsteps seemed muffled in the eerie silence.
Her back ached and the temperature was dropping quite drastically the farther she walked. The mind numbing silence of the forest was quite disconcerting as she walked on, small puffs of chilled breath lingering like frosty mist. In the distance she could make out a lighter shade of grey and walked toward it, hoping for a break in the foliage.
Mercifully, it was. Alanna slowly walked into the dimly lit clearing looking toward the darkening sky with relief, and without a second thought moved toward the centre, her eyes still focused on the early evening sky above her.
No sound that forewarned what happened next.
An arrow flew through the air with an angry hiss, lodging itself only centimetres from her right foot. Alanna yelped in fright and stepped backward, three more arrows following her path, lodging with deadly precision in a tree behind her, passing closely to her body without actually striking her.
Her left hand gripped the broom tightly, her right disappearing between the folds of her cloak, searching frantically for her wand. There was movement right outside her field of vision; small movements that made her think she had imagined them, if it not for the rustling foliage.
Alanna could feel the earth shaking beneath her feet. Something was coming.
'I can fight this…I can fight this…,' she thought anxiously.
She could hear the soft thunder of hooves coming closer to the clearing, her wand at the ready. In her minds eye she could see the four riders of the apocalypse coming toward her…
'Oh, who am I kidding!' she thought frantically, every intention of flying out of the clearing and into the night.
The sharp, cold tip of an arrow pressed against her neck stopped her, her body freezing instantly in shock.
'Bloody Hell.'
"Who are you?" A dark, raspy voice muttered.
As if she has not heard that question before. Alanna swallowed painfully as she saw more than twenty centaurs emerge from the darkness, surrounding her completely. Her wand hand lowered to her side, forgotten.
The tip of the arrow was pressed further into her soft flesh.
"I demand to know who you are, human?" The rough voice asked her from behind.
"What are you doing in our forest?" A black bodied centaur asked unemotionally, pawing the ground in agitation, the surrounding centaurs shifting restlessly thrumming their bows in anticipation. Alanna looked at her broom fearfully, if only she could…
"Do you really think we wouldn't shoot you out of the sky?" The sharp tip lanced through the first layers of skin, bathing it in a few drops of blood. Alanna mewled softly, her eyes huge with fear.
The arrow was removed only to be replaced by a strongly fisted hand tugging sharply at her hair. The words flooded over her lips without thought.
"Alanna Flint. My name….Alanna Flint."
The centaur looked down at her upturned face, his hand wrapping around her thick tresses and pulling it further.
"Why are you trespassing into our forest, Alanna Flint?" his quiet voice without emotion.
"I…I….was on my way through…" his hold on her was painful enough to make her eyes water.
"On your way through?" Magorian furrowed his bushy brows and regarded her darkly, tilting her head to the side.
"This is preposterous! Magorian, have you forgotten our vow to kill whoever dares to infiltrate our forest?" Bane stepped forward shaking his head in disgust. "I say we kill the witch!"
The other centaurs voiced and pawed the ground in approval waiting for their leader to step away and justice to be served. Magorian looked up with a grim expression, releasing his hold on her hair and pushing her forward; her knees connected with the ground sharply.
Alanna looked up through her tangled hair at the rearing hooves and pointed arrows, her hands tightening around her wand and broom. She did not want to die this way. On her knees like an animal without any dignity.
"This human is cursed," Magorian informed his brothers stonily.
She truly was. Alanna slowly rose with trembling legs staring at her angered opponents. She had been cursed when she stole this broom. She was cursed upon arrival at that damnable school, and a cursed memory. This was just another day in the hell that had become her life. She fought the humourless laughter that tried to bubble up from the depths of her waning sanity.
"All the more reason to kill her where she stands," Bane growled, stepping closer and cocking his arrow tightly.
"We are not the ones to pass judgement on her, Bane," Magorian stepped forward, glaring imperiously. It was an uncomfortable feeling being sandwiched between two centaurs.
"I care not about passing judgement, we have already judged and found humans to be sorely lacking," Bane hissed through his clenched teeth.
'Kill me. Kill me not,' the singsong-like voice said in her head. Alanna wished they would make up their minds; the voice agreed. The offending hand found its way back around the expanse of her hair, pulling so harshly she could feel her neck pop uncomfortably. 'Snapping your neck will be faster,' the voice insisted urgently, while her vocal chords made her distress known.
"She is marked," Magorian pointed at the sliver of a scar on her neck ignoring the human's distress. Bane came closer and placed his thumb on the humans chin, tilting her head for a better look.
"This can not be a true scar," he groused disbelievingly. "It would have been in the stars…"
"The stars do not always make their intentions known to us. We are not here to judge one who has already been marked."
"Pluto has been shadowed this week...," the ethereal voice of a red headed centaur interrupted their discussion.
"What of it Ronan?" Bane spat uncharitably.
"That curse was born from obsessive desire for power and channelled by destruction," Ronan joined the other two in the middle of the clearing, looking down on the shaking human. "She has been reborn into what we see before us today."
"This human can not be important in the grand scheme of things," Bane sneered ominously. "The affairs of humans do not concern us!"
"Her life will end harshly, Bane, just not by our hand," Ronan answered cryptically. Alanna closed her eyes, tears spilling down her dirt stained cheeks. Centaurs were not the type to lie about what was apparently mapped out in the stars. Although she was shocked and frightened by the news, it also helped strengthen her resolve. What did she have to loose? Her life already seemed forfeit.
"Release me," her hoarse voice barely suppressing the rage that quickly replaced her fear, whilst the three centaurs argued heatedly, ignoring her request. The rest of the lot were conversing rather loudly about how they should kill her, or if the alignment of the planets were correctly foretelling the future. Alanna felt another hard tug on her hair, gritting her teeth painfully and swaying precariously toward the centaur behind her, unconsciously reaffirming her grip on the broom and her wand.
"RELEASE ME NOW!" She shouted furiously, her voice beginning to crack.
"Watch your tongue, human!" Bane stepped even closer and lowered his face a breath away from hers. "I do not care who or what you are in your world. Here, you are nothing more than an intruder who dares to go against us." He regarded her with an edge of disdain and bitter malice. "If I, or any of my brothers, catch you here once more we will not hesitate to suspend you between two oaks and use you as target practice."
Alanna did not take her eyes from his while he spoke, her breathing laboured by her ire.
"And that goes for any of your other friends that may think it a funny sport to be 'on their way through' here," Bane rose and turned without another glance, cantering toward the edge of the clearing.
She was released with another small tug, her body stumbling forward a few paces, daring not to look up at the protesting centaurs, who thankfully were galloping from her as quickly as they had appeared on the clearing.
"Alanna Flint."
She looked up at the red head they called Ronan through half lidded eyes with suspicion.
"Do not be rash. Your fate is not yet set in stone," he regarded calmly, a sharp contrast to the flurry of activity around them. "Beware of past blood rising against you," with those words he turned and joined the remaining centaurs, disappearing into the forest. The unnatural silence resumed once more and still Alanna stood in the glade regaining a semblance of control over her breathing, her body beginning to tremble as the adrenaline coursing through her veins began to subside. Her knees buckled and her hands loosened their grip on her wand and Firebolt, both falling to the ground beside her.
She had actually survived. Her head hurt like hell and her neck was sore, but otherwise her body was only littered with minor scrapes and bruises. Her throat ached insistently, her windpipe raw from the frigid chill of the night air. This trip was turning out to be more of a hassle than previously anticipated. A rustle from the gnarly underbrush roused Alanna from her thoughts, her eyes scanning the tree line with an alarming sense of trepidation, seeing everything through a filter of possible danger. A cold breeze blew some errant leaves past her line of sight, making her jump in fright; a big pair of red eyes stared back at her through the darkness, her rational mind disengaging and her flight response taking hold.
Alanna frantically grabbed her wand and Firebolt, standing in a fluid motion and setting out at a run toward the opposite end of the clearing. With a powerful underhanded throw, she tossed the broom forward, its hovering charm suspending it in mid motion a few meters ahead of her. A quick look over her right shoulder confirmed the red eyed creature's rapid approach, and with her last spurt of energy she clenched her wand between her teeth and grabbed the handle with both hands; swinging herself onto the broom mid sprint.
The broom responded instantly to the pressure of her thighs, shooting straight up into the twilit sky, the wind biting her exposed skin angrily. She continued her ascent until the forest was a good distance beneath her, racing the lingering birds in the rapidly darkening sky. Shortly after her accelerated heart slowed to a steady beat, she stopped to find her bearings and replace her wand within the folds of her robes. A scan of the perimeter revealed the castle a fair distance behind her, the brightly lit windows of the Great Hall like beacons in the fading daylight. Without a second thought, Alanna turned around on her broom and lowered it into a horizontal flight just above the majestic treetops.
Although she wanted to fly faster than the wind, Alanna realized she would not be able to keep that degree of velocity for a longer period of time and reluctantly curbed her speed. The further the distance she placed between herself and Hogwarts, the lighter her heart became and with it, her hope of a successful escape. A small smile tugged at her lips as she watched the first twinkling star of the night, oblivious to the sparse spattering of trees beneath her.
Until it was too late.
One second she was watching Venus wink from her celestial plane and in the next she felt a vice-like pressure around the expanse of her body, literally plucking her from the onward dashing broom. Alanna watched in horror as a shadow darkened hand of enormous proportion snatched the Firebolt out of the air with two grubby fingers….that were attached to a huge arm….that was attached to a massive body….of a not so harmless looking giant, who was more interested in the 'little stick' than her at the moment.
"Merlin's bloody knickers!" She breathed in a whistling gasp.
The giant grunted loudly. A small gasp of horror parted her lips as she looked up at the six meter giant, grasping her in one hand and regarding the broom in his other with mild interest. His meaty fingers were pressing down on the wood rather harshly in an attempt to break it in two. Thankfully, she recalled this model having an indestructible charm built into the fibre of the wood. Throughout his inattentive musings she dared a glance at her captor from the bottom up; his bare feet were supported huge legs and was clad in roughly sewn animal skins of a non descript brown colour. His neck seemed non existent with a huge and perfectly round head, covered with short bracken hair and fleshy ears. His drooping eye lids covered dimly looking eyes of a yellow-green colour that blinked in slow motion at the Firebolt.
This situation was exceedingly bad for her bladder.
The giant opened his mouth and directed a deafening roar toward the broom-that-would-not-break, showing off a row of huge, perfectly square shaped teeth. Alanna followed the apathetic movement of his hand toward the gaping chasm of his mouth, wrinkling her brow in disgust as he dug the handle of the broom between his teeth. The gurgling grunts of his efforts amplified the further back he burrowed, his molars needing a good cleaning based on the rather fragrant breath that was wafting her way. Her arms were confined tightly against her body all efforts of retrieving her wand stalled by his tightening grip.
A high-pitched grunt of satisfaction followed by a snapping sound alerted her to the successful removal of what must have been stuck between his brick sized yellow teeth. The stench of the rotting flesh was more putrid than she could have ever imagined. Although the light was fading fast she could make out the partially eaten carcass of a unicorn foal, its golden coat barely recognizable by the gangrene flesh and darkly oozing blood. If the stench was not bad enough, his perusal of the 'tasty morsel' was.
'Oh Gods, do not eat it!' she thought, revolted by the sight.
He took a leisurely sniff at the skewered meat and then popped it into his mouth like a cocktail gherkin. Alanna could not believe her eyes as the broken broom emerged from between his lips, the charm obviously not strong enough to withstand 'acts of tooth picking', a gooey string of saliva dripping from the severed wood. She watched her only form of transportation fall to the ground despairingly, not that she would have considered touching it, even after scurgifying the hell out of it.
Now that the first object of interest had been discarded, the giant focused his attention to his other hand. Slowly, Alanna rose, bringing her eye to ruddy eye with her antagonist, who leaned forward and pressed his abnormally large nose against her head, sniffing her rather noisily. She did not dare open her eyes during his scrutiny, in fear that she would come obscenely close to giant-sized bogies.
Let alone nose hair. She shuddered.
"MMMOOHHYAMMM!" He roared quite loudly at her, staring stupidly and proceeded to shake her back and forth in his grip. She would have been less worried if what he said did not sound like an enthusiastic 'yum', as it was, she turned quite nauseous instead. It did not take long for prickling black spots to pepper her vision, her body having had quite enough of the thrashing it has been receiving all day; thankfully, he stopped just in time before she lost consciousness. Alanna's mind registered dizzily that the proximity to that horridly lopsided mouth was getting closer and closer. Once her body began to tilt backward she knew he was trying to eat her head first.
With her last breath Alanna let out an ear-piercing scream, closing her eyes in terror at what would surely be a most gruesome death.
Seconds passed and nothing happened. Alanna opened a weary eye and the world righted itself once more, breathing a sigh of relief while eyeing his closing death trap.
"Hermy."
She stared.
"Hermy!" He said more insistently in a deep, rumbling voice. His dirty finger coming up to her horribly mussed hair, pushing against the side of her head roughly.
"OUCH! Cut that out, will you?" She complained, though if he understood what she was saying would be a far different matter. His grasp on her had loosened only just, allowing the blood to rush back into her tingling limbs. Her trembling fingers quickly made contact with her wand, grasping it firmly and pulling her arms from around his fingers.
"HERMY! HAGGER HERE!"
Darkness had finally fallen and the contours of his body were quickly fading from her sight, his stench, however, remained just as fetid in the cold night air. She hardly wanted to be alone with this huge cretin during the long hours of the night, quickly muttering 'Lumos' to illuminate her surroundings. Alanna expertly pointed the wand at the giant's bulbous nose, his droopy eyes crossing whilst looking directly at the glowing tip.
"Stupefy!" A bolt of red light emitted from her wand and hurled toward the giants face, walloping his nose head on.
Absolutely nothing happened. The giant continued to stare cross-eyed at her wand.
"Stupefy!" She hexed him once more. Nothing. Alanna was becoming quite frantic.
"Stupefy, Stupefy, Stupefy, STUPEFY!" The last jet of red light shot from her wand with an enormous backlash of power, hitting him with a sizzling sting.
The waning light forced her to re-cast a panted Lumos, thinking that she had finally cast a successful spell on the bloody oaf. He was so still she thought she had petrified him, until he slowly uncrossed his eyes and looked at her. Alanna held her breath in fright.
Suddenly, his body shuddered with light convulsions while a quaking rumbling noise came from his chest. He took a big breath and the noise continued.
"Merlin's feet! Are you laughing at me!"
The sound grew into something akin to a satanic Father Christmas belly laugh…that morphed into another big breath…and another…
"Oh Gods, no!"
…and into a humongous, sinus clearing, sneeze. A spray of spittle and snot splattered all over the hand that was holding her, drenching her in gelatinous warm goo, that, although she had barely time to shield herself from the worst of it, ran over her face and dripped from her hair.
She spluttered, trying to wipe her face on a clean patch of robe, her stomach about to loose its contents as the cold air caused steamy vapours to rise.
"HERMY TICKLE!" He boomed merrily. Alanna ground her teeth while his laughter lasted for another few minutes, thick tear drops leaking from his eyes.
"I demand you put me down right now!"
The giant looked at her oddly then slowly brought her closer to the ground. The sound of a howling animal stopped him mid motion, his eyes scanning the tree line in the ominous darkness. A chill ran up her spine that had nothing to do with the freezing temperatures or the rapidly cooling snot.
"Forest BAD for Hermy," he grumbled, retracting his hand.
"I realized that over an hour ago," she said more to herself than him, grabbing a sludgy looking bogie from her head and shaking her hand madly.
"Find Hagger," he said firmly.
"Find what? No! Put me down right now!" Alanna smacked her palm on his huge finger to get his attention. "Have you not done enough damage already?"
"Grawp find HAGGER!" He insisted, another not so distant howl piercing the silence of the night. Before she could protest any further, the giant turned and walked in ground shaking stomps toward the trees.
"Wait! You are going the wrong direction!" He was taking her en route to Hogwarts.
"Hagger there!" He pointed his thick finger toward the castle.
"Home THERE!" If she could not make him understand in full sentences, she would try his own broken language and gestures. He looked at her thickly.
"Hagger HOME," he emphasized the last word by pushing his palm against a thick oak tree, bending the massive trunk with hardly any strain, ripping it up at the roots. The crash of the tree was deafening.
"What did you do that for!" She yelled at him, removing her hands from her ears.
"Scare wolf," he grumbled and promptly imitated the screaming howl they had heard earlier.
"Scare ME!" She bellowed angrily her voice cracking from the strain.
"Hermy safe," he cradled her protectively against his bare chest, walking through the forest at a leisurely pace. The body odour was overpowering and, to her horror, her cheek was pressed firmly against a wiry patch of chest hair that surrounded a nipple the size of a tree stump. This day had just hit its all time low; it just could not get any worse than this.
The minutes passed into hours as Grawp walked through the dark forest. Alanna had given up trying to convince the giant to turn around, her voice not capable of screaming at him further. She only hope that 'Hagger' would be an understanding chap and let her leave…after a few hours of needed sleep, of course. She was so exhausted that the steady footfalls of the giant lulled her into a fitful doze; her wand clasped tightly between her numb fingers, the spell continuously illuminating the darkness.
Sometime during the night it began to rain fat, cold drops that even the trees could not shelter them from. Now fully awake and shivering she squinted at her surroundings, the trees less wild and foreboding here. Up ahead a glistening shimmer caught her eye, something was catching the light from her wand and reflecting it in a faceted sparkle.
"Lumos Maximus," she muttered the spell hoarsely, pointing the wand toward the shimmer beyond the falling rain, bright light flooding further into the darkness. Alanna gasped at the colossal spider web situated between two large pine trees, glittering with a million rain drops. Unfortunately, it was positioned in the middle of their path and Grawp had a tendency to walk through every single obstacle, having left more than a dozen felled trees in their wake.
"Spider web," she rasped at him. The giant did not react and kept walking. "Do you not SEE the WEB?" He grunted and gathered her in the palm of his hand, his fingers curling once more around her body. She groaned.
The web was a wet and sticky mess! As predicted, the oaf walked right into the web, tearing at the clinging strands with his bare hands, conveniently forgetting that she was being held in one of them. A few grunts, five meters of webbed forest, and a highly aggravated and even dirtier witch later, they emerged into a dome shaped enclosure covered entirely in spider web.
Alanna searched the area for any eight legged creatures that may be lurking in the shadows, coming up empty handed. The giant continued walking past the mummified trees, not noticing the oppressing silence. She could not shake the uneasy feeling of being watched…
The pressure of something dropping on her crusty hair almost made her drop her wand. Her left hand flew to the top of her hand and touched a rather large spider the size of her palm, extracting it carefully from her matted hair and looking at it with a little smile.
"Hello there, little one."
The spider sat on her grubby palm for a second, lifted its front legs and lodged its glistening pincers into her wrist. Alanna shrieked, involuntarily dropping the arachnid down the height of the giant, who promptly stepped on it without flinching. She did not have time to feel any form of guilt for its demise, as many dull 'plopping' sounds echoed through the dome. She directed her wand above her head for a quick look and came face to face with eight black eyes, their owner recoiling with an anguished wale.
Spiders of all shapes and sizes were falling from the trees and rushing toward their prey, pincers snapping menacingly. Alanna reacted automatically, hexing as many of the arachnids as possible, before they could either attack her or the giant, who continued on his journey as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening; his heavy footfalls crushing as many spiders as she hexed, the squishing noise of their innards echoing her hoarsely muttered spells. There were just too many of them closing in.
"FASTER!"
She shot three spiders off of his thighs with a well placed stinging charm, but the giant was still not moving any faster.
"Hagger FASTER!" She pleaded, her wrist where she had been bitten already going numb as the venom took effect.
"Hagger THERE!" He roared, reaching the far wall of densely woven web, once again using both hands to clear his path. Alanna had to stop her hexing and concentrate on freeing her face from the sticky white strands. When they were liberated from the web, Alanna aimed a sealing charm at the hole returning it to its former structure.
Several spiders had managed to follow them through the opening and she spent the next minutes stunning the black creatures. A very persistent arachnid the size of a large house elf had managed to foil her spells and cleverly climbed the giant's body from behind. Currently, the menacing beast was perched on his shoulder, moving its pincers threateningly.
"Stupefy!" The hex was not as powerful now, her voice having been reduced to a fierce whisper. The spider easily dodged her attack, dashing out of her line of sight and under the giant's arm. Alanna moved her dimming wand erratically, trying to look for dangerous critter, only to be faced with its venomous 'smile' centimetres from her person. The shocking realization that it would bite her flooding her senses, as it reared on hind legs to strike swiftly.
Mid descent the spider emitted an unearthly squealing noise prior to being lifted clear off of the giant's thick wrist by two grubby fingers. It feebly kicked all of its legs, screeching bloody murder, until its head disappeared between the giant's lips. Alanna averted her eyes while he finished his wiggling morsel swallowing hard to keep the taste of bile down.
"HMMM Num Num," he grumbled smacking his lips and belching appreciatively.
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The next few hours passed slowly, the light of the wand having gone out completely, Alanna being too tired to recast the spell. Her arm was becoming quite numb from the bite, angry red lines streaking up her inflamed skin. She did not have the energy to fight off any more attacks and hung limply in the giant's grasp. A few hours before dawn she woke from a semi-conscious state his hand having tightened around her body cutting off most of her air supply.
"Hagger here," he said into the darkness and pointing toward the break in the tree line. Alanna felt like sobbing uncontrollably. There, beyond the dimly lit hut was the massive castle she had been trying to avoid. Grawp slowly, and quite stealthily for a giant, walked up to the hut and extended his free hand toward the merrily smoking chimney, patting it twice with his open palm. A small cloud of smoke rose resembling a signal into the night, resulting in multiple fits of coughing from within the cabin.
The door opened violently, expelling the coughing Headmaster and Professor Hagrid.
"Grawpy…(cough)..dinna not tell yeh…(cough)…not to do tha'?" Professor Hagrid coughed some more.
"Grawp bring Hermy."
The Headmaster was the first to recover, looking sagely at the giant over his half moon glasses. Professor Hagrid wiped his streaming eyes.
"Wha' did yeh say Grawpy?"
Grawp extended his occupied hand toward the two and grunted. "Hermy safe, Hagger." Alanna groaned when she realized who 'Hagger' really was, and that she would not be able to convince him to let her go. Rotten Luck!
"Miss Flint, it seems you have rejoined us," the Headmaster said sternly. "I trust I do not have to tell you how many people have been looking for you since you pushed Mr. Malfoy into the lake."
She looked at him defiantly.
"Now, Grawpy put Hermy down," Professor Hagrid motioned the giant to lower his hand to set her free, but he reluctantly pulled her back against his chest.
"NO! Grawp want meat!"
Either Alanna was becoming delirious, or the stench of his sweat was not as bad anymore. Professor Dumbledore only watched the scene with steely eyes, waiting for Professor Hagrid to ply the big brute with whatever meat it is he wanted.
"You wan' a nice piece 'o dragon meat, Grawpy?" The shaggy professor quickly ambled back into his hut to retrieve the offered fair. He returned shortly after with a huge chunk of green dragon steak, that he dangled toward the giant's face.
"Now you le' Hermy go, yeh hear?"
"Headmaster…"
Alanna closed her eyes at the sound of the Potion Master's voice, shrinking down into the hand that was currently haggling for her over dragon meat. All too soon, the giant seemed satisfied with his barter and set her free with a mighty shove. Her legs were not willing to support her by this time, buckling from under her and sending her face first onto the muddy lawn.
"Gwarpy tha' was no' nice!" The professor bellowed, handing him the meat. "Now off with yeh!"
Alanna could feel the vibrating steps of the giant as he turned and walked back into the forest with his loot. She slowly rose onto her shaking knees trying to stand, but failing miserably. The remaining two professors looked down at the dirty and shivering mess of seventh year kneeling at their feet.
"I believe a visit to the infirmary is in order. I will see you tomorrow in my office, Miss Flint," Professor Dumbledore said curtly, turning to his colleague. "Severus, would you see that she gets there?"
An unmistakable scowl flitted over his features, his jaw set with defiant determination. "As you wish, Headmaster," he replied tersely, dismissing him from his sight and focusing his obsidian eyes on Alanna's upturned face. His nose wrinkled in disgust.
"Get up, Flint!"
Alanna continued to stare at him, his face shifting around prettily in her tunnelled vision.
"If you think I will levitate you all the way to the castle then you are sorely mistaken," he informed her coldly. He waited only seconds for her response, then growled his displeasure, gripping her numb arm and hauling her to her feet. Swaying precariously she took two steps back to distance herself from his penetrating gaze.
Later, Alanna could not be sure if the attack was provoked, the Professor having wordlessly aimed his wand at her. All she remembered were those glowing red eyes coming toward them from the forest with a snarling howl.
One minute Severus Snape was standing, and in the next ….
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Author's Note: IF YOU HAVE NOT REVIEWED YET, THEN I AM BEGGING YOU TO DO SO NOW! Ok, was that forward enough? Did the last person in the back row hear me alright? GOOD! waits for the thirty people who have me on alert to review….hears crickets…..OK well while I wait, let me thank my wonderful Beta, who is slightly green at the moment, Mysticsong.
Also, PinkCorsair, my muse, who made the good icky parts into delightfully icky parts! All of my reviewers who have been there from the beginning THANK YOU. This chapter is dedicated to all of you. Odyssia here it is!