DISCLAIMER: The characters aren't mine. I'm borrowing them from the esteemed Joss Whedon and J.K. Rowling.
SPOILERS/BACKGROUND: Everything from BtVS Season 1 to Season 6, AtS Seasons 1 to 3, and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
Reviews always welcome!
CHAPTER 38:
SNAKES
Chaos reigned in the Great Hall. Benches were overturned as groups of students rose to their feet en masse, and at the front of the room, many teachers rose to their feet as well, wands in their hands. There was a tumult as everyone started talking and screaming at once, and several older students started looking around the room as though expecting an attack from somewhere. A few younger Slytherins, perhaps less indoctrinated into the cold politics of the House, perhaps simply possessed of that childish curiosity that knows little of death and dying, crowded around the fallen form of Willow Rosenberg, all trying to talk to her at once.
Willow felt none of it. All sounds were distant, thunderous echoes in her ears; her mind was going numb, even as it surged into overdrive. She reached weakly for her wand; fortunately, it had not fallen far away. She focused, her eyes burning, and it slid slowly, agonizingly across the floor towards her.
She was sure Harry was already on his way around the hall, and several teachers were probably on their way down from their seats at the head of the great chamber as well, but in the crowd and chaos, she knew she would be comatose or worse by the time they reached her.
Her fingers closed about the base of her wand, though the only way she knew it was by the feeling of its power suddenly coursing up her body again. Her fingers were already completely numb.
"Back," she rasped weakly. Another thunderous, unintelligible echo answered her.
"Back!" she repeated again, this time throwing her power behind the words. A space cleared around her; whether the nearby students moved back or were thrown back, she neither knew nor cared.
Numbly, working by instinct because she couldn't feel her hands or her wand, she touched the tip of her wand to the wound at her neck, only knowing when she had touched the right spot by the sense of pressure.
"Vipera virum expurgo," she chanted slowly. It was a fairly simple Auror spell, but serpent venom was intrinsically resistant to magic and Willow's will was already faltering. She forced herself to concentrate harder, ignoring the pounding pressure in her head that doing so caused. The first step was always the hardest; if she could just succeed in pulling it out a little, the rest would get progressively easier …
It wasn't working. The wound had been on her neck. The poison was spreading too quickly, and her thoughts were growing too numb to work the spell properly. She could feel the numbness reaching her chest, feel it creeping to her toes, and she spread her legs slightly to keep herself from falling.
From falling?
Since when have I been standing? she suddenly wondered.
Her eyes snapped back into focus. Something else is going on here, she realized. She took a deep, rattling breath. The poison was still spreading, and her body felt cold, but she suddenly realized that she could feel it again. Meanwhile, her thoughts were clearing, though they felt different, as though somehow colder, like the rest of her body. Her vision was in focus again, but everything seemed cast in a baleful greenish-yellow hue.
"Ssspeak in our tongue!" a voice nearby suddenly said, vaguely concerned but also somewhat detached. It somehow cut through the din, however, even though it was rather quiet. Willow turned to see the cobra that had attacked her, now held by the throat by one Vincent Byron, who had grabbed the snake to keep it from attacking her again. The cobra was meeting her eyes clearly, and somehow, she thought it seemed to recognize her. It knew that she could speak its tongue, at any rate.
She quickly decided to worry about that later.
A lot of people don't trust Parselmouths.
She took a deep, painful breath. There was nothing else to be said or done. All right, everyone, she thought.
"Out," she hissed. There were no fancy, convoluted turns of phrase, or ancient dialects of Latin or the tongues of other bygone human civilizations, in the speech of the serpents. A gasp ran through a few of the nearby first-year Slytherins, but Willow didn't care. The snake had been right; the spell had more power over the snake venom in Parseltongue. Her thoughts cleared a little more, and some of the yellow tint in her eyes faded.
"Out!" she hissed again, louder, more forcefully. She began to pull her wand away from her throat again, and this time a trail of inky darkness like liquid smoke came with it, trailing from the tip of her wand.
A thrill of excitement and relief ran through her body as the venom left her. She could feel it being drawn back through her veins to the wound on her throat, and she started to breathe normally again. The color in her vision returned to normal, and the artificial coldness in her body and mind began to melt.
She turned to look at the snake in Vincent's hands questioningly. To her sudden surprise, it lowered its head as much as it could with Vicent's hands around its throat, as if bowing.
"I am sssorry, my lady," it hissed. "I did not recognissse you."
My lady? Willow wondered absently. A moment later, however, she realized that everyone else in the hall was looking at her intently, and the enormity of what had just happened crashed in on her.
"Oh, Goddess …" she breathed, and her knees folded.
"Willow!" a voice behind her suddenly cried, and she heard the sound of running footsteps approaching. A pair of arms enfolded her urgently from behind, and she felt herself collapsing into Harry's embrace instead of to the floor. Her breathing was suddenly coming in long, labored gasps.
"Willow, you're still bleeding," Harry whispered urgently.
Willow nodded. She focused her power again. "Omnipanacea," she chanted softly. Her breath suddenly left her in a whoosh, and she gave a ragged gasp. Ergh, she groaned silently. Goddess, what am I thinking? The Aurors' most powerful healing spell took a lot out of a person. She could feel some of the damage to her lungs fade, and the wound on her neck closed slightly, but not enough.
"What was that?" Harry asked urgently.
"It is a healing spell, Harry," a kindly voice said from nearby. "But perhaps she is a little tired to work it at the moment." Willow and Harry looked up to see Dumbledore standing there; they had been concentrating on her so much that they hadn't even noticed his approach.
Dumbledore quickly knelt down to look at Willow's neck, and a moment later, withdrew a small crystal decanter from within his robes.
"Fawkes' tears," he explained.
"Fox tears?" Willow asked questioningly. What the heck could he do with fox tears?
"Brilliant," Harry suddenly said, a note of intense relief in his voice. Willow was about to ask what he meant, when Harry continued, "Willow, lean over," and began to lean her over himself without waiting for her cooperation, so that the cut on the side of her throat faced upward.
"What?" she asked.
"Phoenix tears," Dumbledore explained with a light smile, though it did not reach his eyes. He quickly dripped a few drops of the priceless liquid onto her wound.
Willow's eyes widened as she felt the power of the cool drops surge through her. Phoenix tears. One of the most powerful restoratives in the universe. It was like a river of warm, refreshing water was flowing through her, gently but quickly, washing away all the damage the poison had done and then some. Moments later, she was on her feet again and able to stand by herself.
"Thanks," she said simply.
"You're quite welcome," Dumbledore said.
"I'm glad you carry those around."
Dumbledore's eyes twinkled. "It did seem prudent," he agreed. "However, I must say you are actually not the one I most expected to have to use them on."
Harry shrugged sheepishly.
"What about this fellow?" Moody asked. Harry and Willow looked past Dumbledore to see the one-eyed professor, who had taken the cobra from a rather relieved-looking Vincent.
"This was not his fault," Dumbledore responded. "Perhaps Hagrid can take care of him." He nodded back towards the teachers' table, where the enormous Care of Magical Creatures teacher was still sitting, having not wanted to risk hurting anyone by trying to force his way through the chaos.
Moody nodded. "Right." Without another word, he turned and started working his way back through the crowd, which parted much more quickly for him now that it had when he had been pushing through it from behind; the show was over, and no student really felt like standing in the way of a seething ex-Auror carrying a large venomous snake.
"Everyone, if you would please return to your seats!" Dumbledore only had to raise his voice slightly to make it carry somehow throughout the entire hall. There was a great rustling of robes and scraping of benches as everyone quickly made to do, or at least act like they were doing, as Dumbledore asked. Willow doubted they were out of anyone's mind yet.
"Howlers can carry spells?" Harry asked.
"Not usually," Dumbledore replied simply. "Though it can obviously be done. I'm rather curious as to how Willow's mysterious attackers managed it."
Willow's mind worked. Before the letter had shouted its curse, there had been something else …
"Lotus," she said simply.
"Lotus?" Harry asked.
"Ah, of course," Dumbledore said, turning and lowering his nose to sniff the remains of the letter on the table.
"Lotus?" Harry repeated.
"It's a powerful magical flower," Willow explained.
"I know that, I wasn't a complete fool in Herbology."
"They put lotus petals in the envelope. They burned when the envelope burst. That let out enough power for the spell."
Harry's eyes widened. "Bloody hell," he whispered.
"And I'm afraid they distorted their voices as well," Dumbledore added. "So the Recall Charm will be of little use."
Willow nodded, but somehow, that wasn't important to her; she had a fairly good idea of who her attackers had been. Looking at Harry for confirmation, she saw that he was thinking the same thing.
"Professor, can I take Willow somewhere private?" Harry asked concernedly.
"I would think you ought to ask her that," Dumbledore said with a smile. "But I see no reason she should stay. Fawkes' tears are … well, Poppy shouldn't need to see her. As to this … well, I'll have Moody investigate." With that, Dumbledore gave them each a modest nod and turned back towards the teachers' table.
"Thanks. Uh … Willow?" Harry asked.
Willow sent a venomous look down towards the head of the table, where the five Slytherins that had been conspiring in the Room of Requirement earlier that day were studiously avoiding looking down in her direction. They tried to kill me, she rasped. At the very least, she could have been hospitalized. Part of her realized that she was unlikely to have died with Dumbledore and Madame Pomfrey there, but that part of her was extremely small at the moment. The rest of her didn't care. Someone had tried to kill her. Somehow, she did not get quite the adrenaline rush out of that that Buffy always seemed to get, that always made her braver and stronger than before.
She turned back to Harry. "Let's get out of here," she practically cried.
"Chamber of Secrets?" he hissed softly in her ear, speaking Parseltongue just in case anyone at the head of the table had any Hearing Charms active.
"Gladly," Willow answered. Dumbledore and Moody would handle the investigation, and the last thing she wanted right then was a barrage of questions from either other students, or from Madame Pomfrey. If there was a place where no one else could get to in Hogwarts, that was where she wanted to be at the moment. She didn't care if it was cold and wet. At the moment, she wouldn't have cared if it had been a sewer.
Turning, Harry and Willow walked slowly from the Great Hall, Harry's arm around Willow's shoulders like a cloak, keeping her from shivering.
Author's Notes: Short chapter, I know! The next one will be a little longer, and it will come a bit sooner than this one did (probably Friday).
Sabia: I know Brits work in Celsius (see Dumbledore in ch. 5 announcing a high of 17); I was responding to someone from Arizona so I used American measurements. Don't worry, we aren't that clueless on this side of the Pond—even if it is bloody next to impossible to find a Strongbow here. ;-)
Coming Soon: Ch. 39, "The Chamber of Secrets." If you can speak Parseltongue and you're looking for some peace and quiet … … …
Sneak Preview:
"Would you like to do the honors?" Harry asked. "This is it."
Willow nodded, and looked right at the eyes of the serpents. For some reason, the mindset to speak Parseltongue was coming easily to her down here. "Open up," she hissed. […]
"Well," he said. "Here we are. The most private place in Hogwarts."