"Erm…why are we here, again?"

"Because it was still a mystery when we left."

"As opposed to now…?"

"I've done some research since then." I pull a small hardbound book from my robe.

"Perennials and Poisons," Violet reads. "Magical Plants of Northern Europe and Their Properties. Brilliant."

"Thought it might come in handy."

"Erm, that was sarcasm, actually. Come on, why are you so hung up on this plant?"

"Why is it hidden beneath a trapdoor in a locked room?"

"Good question." Violet pretends to deliberate. "Maybe it likes to eat inquisitive first years."

I light my wand, sweeping it over the floor in the place I remember. "Some sort of vine, wasn't it? I have a few ideas—" I heave on the trapdoor, "—but I thought we'd be safer giving it a closer look."

Vi huffs in resignation and flips to the section on vines. "Right…color?"

"Hang on." Lying flat on the floor, I shine my wand down. Cautiously. For all I know, something is lying in wait to bite my hand off. For a moment I think I hear a slight slithering sound, but the room is still. In the dim light it appears rather small, and completely empty apart from the piled flora.

"Color—dark green. Almost black."

"Thickness?"

"Maybe…three centimetres?"

"Any movement?"

"Not that I can see, though I thought I heard…Hang on, yes." I wave my arm experimentally, nearly dropping my wand as the texture of the shadows changes. The vines are actually moving, shifting eerily away from the light. Shuddering, I scramble back a couple feet from the trapdoor. After a moment I remember how to speak in a level tone.

"You were right, Violet, they're not ordinary plants at all. They don't like the light, I think—they're contracting."

"Right, I think I've found it. The good news…not carnivorous."

"Lovely. What's the bad news?"

Violet's glance sends a chill through me. "They're known for throttling people alive."

I search my memory. "Devil's Snare? How do we stop it?"

She scans the book again, flips a page. I silently congratulate myself that if nothing else, this venture has finally prompted my friend to crack a book.

"It says…"

She doesn't get a chance to finish.

I'm half turned away from the trapdoor to talk to Violet, so the yank on my wrist comes without warning. For two of the most terrifying seconds of my life I tumble downward through empty air. My muscles barely have time to seize up before the impact is cushioned by piles of vines. I gasp and swallow at the same time, painfully. Nice, soft, murderous vines.

"Annie!"

Violet rushes to the hole, her face illuminated for a brief instant. I curse; my wand must've been knocked out of my hand, left on the dirty floorboards above my head.

"Get back!"

From here I can see that the creeping vines climb the walls of the chamber…and cling to the ceiling itself, in apparent defiance of gravity. With horror, I realize they're crawling toward the trapdoor opening, ten thousand times faster than any plant should be able to move. Invisible to Violet.

I lunge upward, but a dozen strands, invisible in the darkness, hold me down. One thick tendril is still curled tightly around my wrist.

"Get back, Vi, go get help—"

My warning comes too late.

I don't actually know who will kill us harder: the Devil's Snare, or the headmistress if we're found here. We have three options. Number one: fight the things off ourselves. Probably die. Number two: abandon hope and definitely die. Number three: call for help. None of the staff will hear. If they do, we'll be saved and then expelled.

Number three is not an option.

I need to straighten out my priorities.

Violet struggles nearby, already nearly as entangled as I am. The tightening vines across my chest restrict my breathing, but I speak as steadily as I can under the circumstances.

"Violet! Vi, stop struggling and listen to me."

She fights harder. Her outline is invisible in the darkness, but I can feel waves of panic rolling from her, hear in her breathing that she's holding back a scream.

"Violet!" More frantically.

I curse loudly, hoping to startle her out of her terror.

"VIOLET!"

Her thrashing is getting more and more violent.

Change tactics. Keep my voice calm. I have to make her understand. I make a wild grab for her wrist and miss.

"Violet! Think of the book, Vi. You were reading how to stop Devil's Snare. What did it say?"

Her voice is muffled sobbing. I imagine the tears streaming down her face, dripping into the damp that this hellish place thrives on. Is that how Devil's Snare survives? Off the tears and blood of its victims?

"Never…got…there…"

I curse myself for not reading the thing through myself before we came. I skimmed the pages, though, there's the slightest possibility that the crucial information is stored somewhere in my brain…

The vines cover me now almost to my neck. When I close my eyes and lie back, Violet clearly thinks I've succumbed. Her sobbing mingles now with screams.

"Andrea! Andrea, get up! ANNIE!"

I tune her out, and remember the path. It crops up instantly in my mind. Four, five, six swift steps and I'm standing outside a utilitarian wooden door leading to a crowded little storage room. And the search is on. It's here; it's got to be here…

I swear that one of these days I will organize properly. The book is flung carelessly onto a pile in a corner. I seize it and flip through. Half the pages are blank, but words jump out at me.

Swamp… grassland…predatory…medical utility…

"ANNIE!"

Light…defenses…poison…

A vine is now creeping around my throat. In a moment it will start to pull, tightly…squeeze the tears out of me too…I have a sudden vision of the plants curling around my lifeless form, caressing my face, drawing nutrients from my…

Tears.

Damp.

I'm an idiot.

Dark and damp, the book said. Light, the book said.

It's obvious, so obvious…the vines tighten around my neck and I breathe in sharp gasps, forcing oxygen to my brain…the Devil's Snare barely responded to the feeble light of my wand, but fire…

Violet's voice quavers again through the darkness, growing weaker.

"Annie, please wake up, I swear…"

Block it out. The weight across my chest, the choking sobs of my friend, the dank, rotting smell, the clammy touch of Devil's Snare across my bare neck. Blink away the dark spots obscuring my vision. Why do people call them dark spots? They're lights, starbursts and lantern smears in the darkness, blossoming blue and purple and pale green…that's not right…

Light…fire…no wand…Violet still has hers, I think she does…

"Fire, Violet," I choke out. I can barely make out my voice in my own ears.

"Andrea?"

She can't hear. It's no use.

I'm left with no hope and no oxygen and no choice. So I close my eyes and let my magic well up inside, almost of its own accord. Pull it forward until I feel that almost-tingling sensation. That's the trick—to almost feel it.

Right now, however, my whole body is tingling in that getting-the-life-choked-out-of-you sort of way.

Concentrate…

I can't keep the magic in the single room in my mind. I tried once. It leaked out, leaked everywhere, burning instead of the usual delicate race through my veins. That was a bad day.

I change tactics, pulling inward instead of out. Almost immediately my numbing limbs tense, a little of the feeling coming back and with it, the familiar rush…

Then the switch, push the phantom sensation into reality.

Only it doesn't work. Too damp. No wand. I'm a catalyst without a wand, which is to say no catalyst at all. Or something. Apparently my sense of analogy requires oxygen to function. At any rate the attempt is ineffective, pointless, worthless—and the flood of invective stops there, because the same can be said for my grasp of synonym. I need something…I forget…

Air, I think triumphantly. Only I can't get any. No, it was something else.

Energy.

Heat is energy. I try to recall where heat comes from.

Fire. No, because I don't have fire…for fire I need heat…

A spark. I can get a spark.

Anger works best.


The anger comes when called and, as always, expands without prompting.

The sought-after spurt of heat erupts through me all at once—it must have been lingering at the edge of consciousness all this time, I think, to come when called like an obedient dog. It's probably too late, though, because I can't taste oxygen anymore. There's nothing for it to feed off—maybe that's why the dog died—stupid, really, should have thought of that before…

But it's all right, because nothing really matters when I'm afloat this way. Gliding, drifting on gentle ocean waves—how did waves get down here? Triumph bursts through me. Water, yes. I wanted water, didn't I? Top of my class, Uncle John always said…

No. Not right. They both flicker across the walls, so I got confused. Water is Slytherin-green, and I need Gryffindor-red. Fire. Pop. A split-second later I stop caring; if I ignore the pain in my chest the water is fine, it's a perfectly pleasant sensation, carrying me off into the darkness...

Maybe the squid is down here, too. My heart lurches painfully against my ribcage. It could be. I can feel it. Wrapping tentacles around me. Squeezing the breath out of me.

Down, and up. Down, and…up again. The waves aren't gentle anymore. I can't breathe.

Never liked down. And up…up is merely a promise of down again, later. The dimensions tangle and seethe around me, and it's hard to think, which makes sense because thinking is never unidirectional, you can only go up for so long, and sometimes you don't survive the fall. Learned that the hard way.

Abruptly the floating sensation vanishes, and I'm calling out, screaming for it to come back because there's only gravity now, weakest of the forces, they say, but it wasn't weaker than you, was it, pathetic excuse for a…

"Incendio!"