1Hey everybody. It's been a while, ain't it? But I'm back now. It's taken me forever to get this up... school and report papers take a lot out of a man.

One note: the information on knight swords that Dumbledore gives Ron near the end of this chapter is HISTORICALLY ACCURATE! I am a big weapon buff, and have held real swords from the Medieval era. The swords are very light, and usually only weigh around three or so pounds. Despite what Hollywood says, knightly weaponry was very easy to use, and the fighters back then were quick and powerful with their swords.

Most of today's "replica" swords are completely wrong and weigh far too much. Even the heaviest swords only weighed about eight pounds, max.

Well, there's one pet peeve out of the way. So...

Onward with chapter four of "Even A Serpent Can Bleed"!

"SHOWTIME!"

Godric's Hope, fourth day of classes, 12:30, right after the Speech of the Gathering.

Dumbledore looked at all of them and spoke.

" Thank you. I was proud of all of you for different reasons when you came here, but now I am more proud of you, because you have just proven that you might, just might, be heroes."

" And now, let me explain this room. Godric built it for the sole purpose of gathering together the best weapons he could and placing them where they could be used by later students of Hogwarts in times of need. The room is normally locked, but I unlocked it recently to come inside, dust off the weapons here, and await your arrival. I ask each of you to stand up and walk to the racks on the walls, and there pick out a weapon appropriate for yourself."

" Weapons, sir? But we've received no training..." Hermione said, a confused look on her face.

" Oh, but you will," Dumbledore chuckled. " In fact, your teacher is awaiting you on the ship."

" Ship?" Hermione said. " What ship?"

Dumbledore merely shook his head, smiling, and said " Choose your weapons."

Slightly confused, all of them stood up and splintered off (an act they would become vastly familiar with later, for various reasons) and began perusing the walls. It was here that, oddly enough, many of them realized their destinies: by picking up objects whose task was to end the destinies of others.

Neville and Ernie somehow ended up walking together. The walls were little more than shining arrays of metal to Neville, and he said as much to Ernie.

" Oh, but there's more to these than meets the eye," Ernie said, in that slightly pompous voice of his that somehow managed to avoid condescension while still making Ernie sound better than those he was talking to. " Each weapon is as unique as its wielder. It's very important to choose the correct tool for the job. I, for instance," he said, picking up a battle axe and hefting it, " come from a long family of lumberjacks. Though in recent years we have raised our standing in society considerably, axes run in our blood, and we all like to feel something a little solid in our hands." Deciding the axe was not quite balanced enough, he offered the handle to Neville. " Care to try?"

" No thanks," Neville said, looking nervously around. " I don't think axes would suit me very well... er, Ernie, ain't it?"

" Yes," Ernie said calmly. Putting the battle axe back, he said, " Ernie Macmillan. You're Neville Longbottom, correct?"

" Yes," Neville said, pleased Ernie had gotten his name right.

" Care for one of these?" Ernie picked up an executioner's axe, remarkably like the one that an executioner had tried to kill Buckbeak with long ago. In fact, the blade might have been its twin.

" No thanks," Neville said, looking around.

" Alright then." Ernie almost put the weapon back, but pulled it close and began experimenting with it. He hefted it to his shoulder, put it down, and performed a few experimental chops with it. Thankfully, the room was quite wide, and there was plenty of room to swing weapons in; the only furniture in the room, the chairs and the desk, were set in the middle of a very large room. Godric had probably made it large on purpose, so he could test any weapons he brought in or make sure old ones still worked properly, Ernie mused.

Ernie tried an experimental rushing slice (as his grandpa had called it) wherein he swung the blade diagonally up from right to left while moving forward. The axe's edge came quite close to Neville's head, and Neville squeaked and ducked.

" Watch where you're swinging that!" Neville cried.

" Don't worry," Ernie said. " I've had good practice with these."

Ernie tapped the axe against the ground, and decided there and then that this was the weapon he wanted. It was heavy as hell, but powerful, and well balanced despite its weight; either it was enchanted, or (more likely), someone had placed lead or some other heavy material in the bottom end to balance the weapon out.

" Dumbledore, may I take this one?" Ernie asked to Dumbledore, raising his voice so he could be heard over the talk of the others.

" If that is your choice, then you may," Dumbledore said. " All the weapons here are yours to choose, if you wish."

" Well, here is my weapon," Ernie said in a lower tone to Neville. " Where's yours?"

" Here, I think," Neville thought aloud, looking at a large hammer inset into the wall. The head was that of an enormous mace, slit into grooves designed to heighten impact and cause incredible damage in the target. " Yeah, I think I'll take this one," he said.

" It might be a good idea to check it first, to make sure you can use it," Ernie said.

" Yeah," Neville replied, but in his head he had already decided this was his weapon. " We'll see."

He hefted the mace and was surprised by the weight of it. Surely this weapon contained power; it weighed as much as a mountain, and anything that heavy was bound to be enchanted beyond the bounds of ordinary humans. With an effort, Neville hefted it, and put it on his shoulder about midway up the shaft in imitation of Ernie. He immediately began to tip over, and let out a little squall of surprise.

" No, Neville," Ernie said, laughing slightly and smiling, " that's not right. You carry an axe like that, with the head slung over your shoulder. Carrying a hammer that way is not advised." Heading over as he spoke, he helped put Neville to rights and stood before him, holding his axe so that the bladed head rested on his shoulder and not past it. The shaft cut diagonally across his chest to end near his left hip. " This is how you carry a hammer. With an axe, you need to get as much force behind it as you can, so you put it over your shoulder where it has the most room to gain momentum before impact. With a hammer, though, your weapon doubles as your shield, and you want it in a position where you can block quickly, in case of trouble. With it held like this, you can swing it over your heart," Ernie demonstrated as Neville watched intently, " and the vital organs quickly. Look at the head on your weapon and you'll see why that's important. It's large enough to guard a lot of your torso at once, so you can block with the weapon and then counterstrike. The very first thing I was taught at home about heavy weapons is that they are not designed to strike first. They are designed to strike once. With a heavy weapon, you only need that one, perfect shot. Here, let me show you how to swing."

As Neville and Ernie went through basic heavy weapon motions (Neville soon got into the flow of things and began doing basic exercises rather smoothly, though his hands were rather slow; the weapon was very heavy), Draco stood off by himself, looking down at a rack of swords and viewing the weapons with a master's eye.

[ Ah, a rapier,] he said, pulling one out of it's sheath and admiring the blade's thin, razor-edge perfection. [ Just what I was looking for.]

This was the weapon he had trained with, the weapon he had lacked when he fought Harry Potter the first time. This was the ancient weapon of his family, the Malfoys, and though Draco was a Slytherin and henceforth innately dishonorable, he did have loyalty to one thing: his family. This was the weapon he would wield.

[And with it, kill Harry Potter,] he thought malevolently. He sheathed the beautiful weapon and began attaching the loaded scabbard to his belt.

Meanwhile, Parvati, Seamus, and Cho had been wandering about, looking at all the weapons with wonder and awe. Parvati saw a chain whip and began to squeal.

" That looks like fun!" she exclaimed, rushing over to it. Dumbledore's speech had succeeded in banishing the last foul remnants of her vision from her mind. Picking up the whip, she looked it over with the glazed look of a girl in love. Truth be told, the way the weapon reflected light did make it beautful, but Seamus did not think that a whip was an appropriate weapon for anyone other than a dominatrix.

" Um, Parvati?" he said. " You do know that whips make really poor weapons, right?"

" That is not entirely true, young Seamus," Dumbledore said. " Whips, in the hands of an expert, are devastating weapons, capable of grabbing an opponent's weapon and throwing it away, or returning it back to the attacker blade first. I do agree with you that whips are not substantially good weapons in the hands of someone who is not an expert; but by no means discourage her, if that is her choice."

Seamus shrugged and stepped away from Parvati and Cho to glance at the weapon racks farther down. Seamus liked weapons, liked combat, even, and so this room of weapons was working wonders on his psyche. Deciding that a spear would suit him best, he pulled a long handled, long pointed one off the wall. He spun it over his head, marveling at the feel of dextrous ease with which the weapon moved through the air. Putting it in his hands correctly, he began a quick triple thrust, which he had been taught on his first day of Weapon Arts class. The teacher, a grouchy half-mad old man named Delhurst, had begun the semester drilling in what he called "primitive weaponry", namely the axe and the spear. Seamus personally thought the man was an idiot; no general who has ever seen his army torn apart by lancers backed up by swordsmen would call spears primitive. Spears and axes may have been made first, but that didn't indicate anything by itself; truth be told, weapons were very simple things. Even such "sophisticated" weapons as swords were little more than sharp slabs of metal designed to kill.

Seamus finished the combination and tapped the end of the spear down on the floor, hard. The noise it made was final, a ringing tone that indicated that a choice had been made and closed forever.

" I'll take this one," Seamus said.

" As you will," Dumbledore said, nodding his head.

Pleased at Dumbledore's amicable attitude, Seamus tapped the spear against the floor once more- lightly this time, the sound it made like that of a walking stick holding up an old man- and walked back over to one of the chairs. He sat down with it cradled in his arms, butt end on the floor, spear head leaning against him. He tapped his foot against the floor, pleased with his new weapon.

Meanwhile, Parvati had pulled the metal whip off the shelf and was experimentally uncoiling it. Deciding to go for maximum effect, she lashed up and then lashed down. The result was a startlingly loud bang as the whip went off-course and struck a wall of daggers, most of which came tumbling down. Eyes growing huge at her own mistake, Parvati merely looked sheepishly around as everyone in the room stared at her. Neville, in the middle of a complex combination, almost threw his hammer across the room. Ernie's quick thinking had prevented that particular catastrophe by poking Neville in the shin with the butt end of his axe, causing Neville to automatically jerk his hands back, dragging the hammer along with them.

" What'd you do that for?" Neville whispered to Ernie fiercely.

" Sorry," Ernie said, looking back at Parvati in the now quiet room. Her cheeks were radish red.

Malfoy, an aristocrat's smile on his face, said, " Oh great. Absolutely genius. What are you doing? Dumbledore did just give you a mission to save the world, Parvati."

Finding himself in odd agreement with Malfoy, Harry grinned at his quip and said nothing.

" Sorry, Mr. Dumbledore... er.... sir..." Looking as if she would like nothing more than to find a shell to crawl back into and hide, Parvati dropped the whip and began picking up the daggers, attempting to put them back on their shelves.

" No need," Dumbledore said, raising his hand in an almost negligent gesture. Weapons flew back onto the walls. Parvati looked at the floor and saw that the whip was still down there.

" Why didn't you get this one?" she asked.

" I had assumed you were going to use that weapon," Dumbledore said quietly.

" But, uh... what about..."

" Your little mistake? Those things happen," Dumbledore said. " You are new to the weapon, and since no one was hurt, the accident is merely funny, not dishonorable. Go on, pick it up, if you wish to use it. There is no shame here."

Still feeling as if she should crawl into a hole somewhere, Parvati picked up the whip and looped it through a convenient hole in her robes, whispering a spell to keep it in place. Stepping back, she watched Cho as she glanced at the daggers Parvati had knocked down.

" Any of those suit you?" Parvati asked, speaking mostly out of embarrassment.

" Not really," Cho said. She glanced around the room. " In fact, nothing here really seems to suit me." She glanced around, as if wondering about something, then turned to face Dumbledore.

" Sir," she said, " why did you choose me?"

" Ms. Chang?" Dumbledore said respectfully.

" I'm not a warrior," Cho said. " I'm an average student. I don't have anything special about me... why did you choose me?"

Dumbledore shook his head. "I cannot really answer that... but I can try. The truth is that each of you are special, in some way. You do not know it yet, Cho, but you are vitally important to the success of this mission. Trust and believe in yourself. Those words are cliched, but as true now as they were when they were first spoken."

Cho Chang said nothing, merely looked at the floor and thought for a minute. Dumbledore said, "If you do not believe in your ability to wield a weapon at close range, may I suggest something?"

" What?" Cho said.

" There is a fine longbow back there," Dumbledore said, pointing. " I believe that it is made of windwood, and strung with eagle sinew. Made by Helga Hufflepuff herself. She never was much for close combat, but she was an excellent shot, and she loved crafting things. Godric won it from her in a game of dice... there is also a quiver back there, one Godric crafted out of dragon leather and the inside of a porcupine's flesh. Porcupine's flesh is interesting material; when enchanted, it cannot be pierced, slashed, or cut in any way, save by wood..." Dumbledore shook himself, and said, "I believe that you will find the bow and arrow are fine weapons for one such as yourself, Cho."

Cho nodded to him and went to pick up the bow. It was a beautiful thing, light green and white dancing on its surface, the string strong, vibrant, and creating an almost musical twang when Cho plucked it. The quiver, a light forest brown, lay next to it. It was empty of arrows.

" Sir..." Cho said. "Where are the arrows?"

" You will find a full complement of arrows, plus the materials to fletch your own, on the ship," Dumbledore said.

" That's twice now that you've mentioned a ship," Hermione said. "What are you talking about?"

" In time, in time," Dumbledore said. "After all, an old man's got to have his secrets now, doesn't he?" He chuckled good-naturedly. "Trust me, it'll be a most... pleasant surprise."

" If you say so," Hermione said doubtfully, turning away to look at the walls. She was standing next to Ron and Harry, and they were the only ones who had not chosen a weapon yet.

" What are you taking?" Hermione said to them.

" This," Ron said, taking down a knight's broadsword. He picked it up, swung it, and said, "Hey, I think there's something wrong with this one."

" What is it?" Harry said.

" It's too light," Ron said. "It only weighs a couple of pounds." He started to put it back when Dumbledore called to him.

" That weapon is actually quite heavy for a sword, Ron," he said. " It weighs four pounds, no more, no less. It is a weapon Godric himself favored, when he wasn't using his longsword. It is accurate and a powerful weapon, I assure you."

" But I thought swords were heavy?" Ron said. "We have a few Muggle made replicas in our house, and they're real heavy."

" Muggle television and urban myth states that swords were heavy, clunky weapons to wield," Dumbledore said. "Henceforth, the "replicas" they make are usually filled with some heavy substance so that they "feel" right. But, as you can probably guess, this makes no sense! These weapons were used by Muggles for centuries. One does not wield a slow, clunky weapon for centuries, because one will get killed by the first person to come along with a staff. A "real" sword only weighs a few pounds, and even the six foot long claymores weighed only eight to ten pounds, depending on the make. And likewise, those who fight with them are fast, terribly so, capable of thrusting their weapon completely through the opponent, withdrawing it, and turning to fight another in the blink of an eye. They also learn wrestling techniques, so that they can throw their opponent down and finish them off while they are recovering from the throw. There are more ways of fighting with a sword than with any other weapon, save perhaps the fists and the feet. That weapon is an excellent example of its kind."

Rather awed by this speech, Ron lowered the sword back down from the pedestal it had been mounted on and looked at it with new wonder. Putting its hilt firmly in his right hand, he swung it a few times, marveling at how the blade seemed to sing as it split the air.

" I'll take it," Ron said.

Hermione, meanwhile, had been taking a staff down from the wall. It was pure white, made of some unidentifiable material that seemed like metal but felt like wood, and was tipped with a small obsidian jewel. " I'll take this one," she said.

All eyes turned to Harry, who had been standing nearby watching as Ron practiced with his sword. He held no weapon in his hand, and seemed in no hurry to get one.

Dumbledore said, "Have you found your weapon, Harry?"

" He probably thinks he's too good to wield any of them," Draco said, sneering.

" Actually, I do," Harry said smugly. "The only weapon I will wield is my body. And, before you say anything smart to that, Draco, remember that my hands were more than enough to put you in the infirmary for a few days."

Draco's face lit up in rage, and then he turned away to glower.

" Are you sure, Harry?" Dumbledore said. His eyes held something strange in them...

" Yes," Harry said. "Why wouldn't I be?"

" No reason," Dumbledore said. "I would just be more... ah... reassured if you were to take a weapon, that is all." Harry noticed with something like awe that Dumbledore had sweat on his forehead.

" I'm fine," he said, and Dumbledore nodded his head.

" Alright then," he said, and the slight tremble in his voice that Harry had almost missed disappeared, and it was the proud voice of the Headmaster hammering out that said, "If you are all ready, let's go meet the ship and crew that will carry you all over the world."

Dumbledore stood and walked out of the room. Carrying their weapons with them, the others followed him. Harry glanced back, just once, as if he thought he might see something that would tell him why Dumbledore was acting so strangely... but there was nothing.

Nothing at all.

---

Outer Wall of Hogwarts, five minutes later.

Dumbledore stood near an enormous oak door, his back turned to it, and faced the nine companions. Smiling, he raised his hand, fingers in the classic "click" position.

" Ladies and Gentlemen," Dumbledore said, smiling, "meet your new ship!"

With that, he clicked his fingers, and the doors opened. As they swung into the open air, a shadow covered the sun and blotted out the sky. As the enormous girth of something came down to touch the ground of the courtyard, all nine stumbled out into sunlight.

Draco, rather aptly, summed it up by saying, "What- the hell- is that?"

Dumbledore, smiling, said simply, "The Excelsior."

-No notes from Salazar's notebook this chapter. I'm thinking of doing it every other chapter, so that I don't tell you guys too much of the storyline... I just want to give you enough to tempt ye! (Chuckles) Read and review, please!