They Didn't Know We Were Seeds
As he unshrinks and hands out the swords him and Lily gathered after leaving the Great Hall, she looks him in the eyes and says, "Someone ought to stand guard."
Severus raises an eyebrow at Lily. "Are you volunteering?"
Lily juggles her sword to one hand and starts to tap the fingers of her unoccupied hand on her thigh in that considering way of hers. "Maybe," she replies.
"Shouldn't the age lines and other wards we just put up be enough to keep students and professors out?" asks Dirk, looking between the two of them with an acute anxiousness. To Severus, it appears what they are about to do is starting to turn real to the Ravenclaw and he's becoming afraid. Severus sympathizes greatly. His stomach is churning just enough to make him nauseous but not so much so he has the urge to vomit all over everyone's shoes. In nearly no time at all they are going to be facing off against a Basilisk.
He wishes he'd checked on Hagrid's rooster earlier. He wishes he'd researched other ways to kill it instead of deciding to make a replication of Potter and his friends' actions into the Chambers their back-up plan. Almost imperceptibly shaking his head, Severus turns his attention to Dirk. "I think so," he tells him.
Lily rolls her eye. "You also thought the diary was safe," she reminds him irritably.
Severus resists the urge to call her a bitch by scoffing loudly as Rookwood laughs. "She's got you there!" the Hufflepuff crows.
He shouldn't, but he's fear-sick and annoyed enough to make a crude gesture at the younger. Rookwood's eyes go wide and she snarls, "Prick!"
"Hey!" Dirk reprimands. "Knock it off, the lot of you," he orders, sending each and every one one of them a withering glare. "The last thing we need is for all of us to be cross with each other before we go down into the Chamber to kill a basilisk."
Severus huffs a breath of disbelief, but otherwise gives no dissenting opinion. Rookwood still looks a bit sour, while Lily, however, nods agreeably, mouth even curving with a proud little smile. He's not surprised. He can see now Lily likes leaders and Dirk is showing that he can step into the role where and when needed.
"So who will stay up here?" Rookwood asks.
He looks between them all. There is no way in Hell he's going to let Rookwood sit out on the Chambers. He doesn't trust her alone up in the lavatory nor does he think she would make a good last defense should the snake kill them all and make its way to the entrance to terrorize the school. Lily would be a good choice he knows, she's likely the least battle-experienced given the age at which she passed. However, Severus hesitates to actually let her stay behind. She's far more fierce than Dirk and Severus is confident she won't freeze at any moment while facing off against the snake. Severus isn't sure he can say the same for Dirk and he doesn't want to end up having to try and protect him and kill the snake at the same time too.
Before he can make a decision, Dirk says, "I will." He turns to Lily. "You should go. I know Severus trusts you more and won't be as distracted if he's not worrying about both me and Rookwood."
Lily starts to reach for the Ravenclaw's hand, only to stop short; casting a furtive glance his way as she does so. "Are you sure?" questions the Gryffindor.
"Yes," Dirk assures, gaze softening. "Just in case, though…" his face becomes contrite as he looks at Severus. He starts to furrow his brow in response, but before Severus can finish, he fixes his face into a blank mask as the Ravenclaw steps forward, closing the gap between him and Lily, and leans down to press a brief kiss to her lips. "Be safe, okay?" he whispers. After Lily's head bobs, Dirk raises his stare to Severus and then shifts it over to Rookwood. "All of you."
It takes a moment to find words that will fit around the ball in his throat, but when he does, Severus croaks, "We will."
-O-
Severus is flanked by Lily on his right and Rookwood on his left when they step into the chamber. Under the Chamber's dim green light they pass numerous pillars covered with reliefs of snakes whose stone eyes feel as if they are following them as they slowly approach the statue of Salazar Slytherin at the Chamber's other end. Their plan for the snake is deceptively straightforward.
The three of them will go toward the mouth of Salazar's statue and the girls will stop just short of halfway there as he continues the length of the chamber. After he's flush against the statue next to Salazar's mouth, Severus will cancel the charm quieting their presence and bang on the statue, drawing out the snake. Then, when the Basilisk wakes and emerges, the girls will draw his attention and take off running for the entrance to the chamber on either side of the walkway. The girls will keep their eyes on one another, ensuring they don't meet the snake's gaze, and, when the need arises, shoot off hexes and curse at the basilisk whenever it gets too close to one or the other as Severus comes at the snake from behind to behead it.
That way, he never has to see its face. That way, the chances of him falling into a panic attack or flashback are muted and that way their plan is far more likely to end in success with minimal trauma for all involved. Severus knows better than to think things will go as smoothly as he plotted, but all the same, he tells himself on rote it will go smashingly and in less than an hour the four of them will have the diary destroyed and they'll be back in their classroom to celebrate with the bottle of fire whiskey Rookwood filched from her uncle's liquor cabinet.
He catches the scent of Rookwood's citrus perfume when she leans in close to whisper, "It's really inside the statue?"
"Yes!" he hisses back.
"It's not a very big opening…"
He rolls his eyes. "Snakes are flexible, they don't need large openings."
Lily nudges him. "Shh! What if you wake it before we're ready?"
Severus levels her with a stare of disappointment. "Did you really pay so little attention to the casting I was doing before we came into the chamber? We are under a quieting spell, one made for hunting beasts with acute hearing. It won't hear us until I take it off."
"My apologies for being more concerned about whether or not my parents and sister would find the letter I wrote for them amongst my things if we don't come out of this alive," Lily snarks, squaring her shoulders in preparation for a row.
Rookwood looks between the two of them. "It's a dampening spell, not a silencing spell, I'd be careful about raising your voices—"
"More like you were concerned about whether you'd get that last kiss with Dirk, is like it," he snaps.
The Gryffindor's face turns into one of outrage. "What is that supposed to mean!"
Rookwood shrieks, drawing him and Lily's attention to her. "Down! Down!" she howls, throwing herself to the ground with surprising speed for one of with a stomach of her size. Severus doesn't hesitate to do the same and makes sure to grab Lily and bring her down with him when he sees out of the corner of his eye that the light of befuddlement is starting to brighten her gaze. Above them, he hears the hiss of the Basilisk. Severus resists the urge to look up and instead thinks quickly. Scrambling onto his hands and knees, he grabs onto the back of Rookwood's robe and rolls hard into Lily, pulling the Hufflepuff with him, once he sees the snakes shadow on the stone walkway in front of them.
Severus and the girls watch as the Basilisk's head collides with the ground where they were seconds earlier before it slithers around to attempt to locate them once more. "Don't look away from its teeth!" hollers Lily, clambering to her feet and reaching for the sword she let go of when Severus rolled into her. Rookwood is following her lead and uses her own sword to pull herself up as she calls out, "Our plan can still work! Come on, Evans, this way! Snape! Get up you git and kill it!"
He tries. But his knees won't lock and his hair is already sticking to his face from the terror-sweat he's drenched in. While the Snake initially dove at Lily, trying to devour her in one fell bite, when it turns in his direction and sees him shaking like a cornered hare on the floor of the chambers, its mouth widens to show off all its sharp, dagger teeth at Severus before it shoots towards him. Horrified, Severus uses pure obstinance to stumble to his feet and leap out of the basilisk's way.
Severus shouts in terror when he hears the back of his robe tear. With all the adrenaline coursing through him, he isn't sure if it is just his robe that has been ripped into or if his back is also grazed by the beast's teeth. He hopes to God that he's not been cut by one of the snake's teeth, because if they don't end this quickly, it will be a death sentence for him.
The girls scream when they hear him yell. "Severus!" Lily shrieks.
"Hey! Come this way you overgrown worm!" howls Rookwood as he sees a light from a curse illuminate the chamber from the other side of the basilisk's bulk.
It makes a noise of pain and turns away from Severus, giving him the chance to feel his back. His fingers come away tinged with blood. He swears. Severus should have kept that damnable diary on his person at all times! If he had, he wouldn't be here now, ill-prepared, scared, and most certainly dying, while trying to kill the basilisk and steal its venom.
"Severus!" shrills Lily again.
Running over to where he left his sword in favor of getting out the way of the basilisk's black hole of a maw, he picks up his weapon and hollers back, "I'm fine, Lily!" Severus has just enough of his wits about him to realize this is perhaps the biggest lie he's told her yet. He can already feel the venom working its way into his system. His skin feels like a furry suit and his fingers and toes are tingling as if he's stuck them in a Muggle electrical socket. There's not enough time for Severus to take in the true depth of his pain, however. "Keep the basilisk distracted!" he orders. "I'm going to kill it!" Using his flight spell, he rockets himself into the air.
Severus's vision is starting to blur and it appears there are two snake heads instead of one, but when it comes time to land on the basilisk's back at the base of its head, he manages, albeit with a little inaccuracy. He's more to the right than he cares for and if the beast swerves that way, he may very well tumble off; Severus doesn't let it stop him from breathing, "Yes!" in victory. Immediately after, the snake picks up on his presence and starts to thrash. As he feared he may, Severus nearly falls off, but, holds off from plummeting to his death on the chamber's floors when he swings his sword around with one hand and then uses both to plunge it down into the beast's head and regain his equilibrium.
The snake gives a pain-filled scream and Severus uses all of his body-weight to dig the sword in deeper. Before he knows it, he's laid belly first on the snake's head and is only a matter of meters from the ground instead of a good kilo up in the air.
The girls are soon beside Severus on the snake's head as he struggles to pull himself into a sitting position. "It's dead!" Rookwood all but roars in his ear. "We did it!"
With clumsy hands, Severus fumbles inside his robe and pulls out the diary. "H-Here," he says through chattering teeth. Severus holds it up with a shaking arm for Lily to take. "C-Caref-ful ex-ex-ex-tracting—"
"Sev?" Lily whispers, dropping to her knees in front of him and letting the diary fall to the side. Her hands are so cold against his boiling skin he tries to pull away from them and the frostbite they are surely in the process of creating. "Sev? she repeats in a high, panicked tone when all he does is moan.
"Fuck!" curses Rookwood. "His back…"
Lily presses flush against him to look over his shoulder at his back. "No," she whispers. "This isn't happening!" she denies. Pulling back, she takes his face in her hands once more and forces him to meet her gaze. It's hard, but he manages to focus just long enough to revel in the bright green of her irises. 'This is better than last time,' he thinks to himself. 'They don't just look like Lily's eyes, they are her eyes…'
Severus gasps when his friend's fingernails cut into the skin of his jaw. "Don't you dare close your eyes, Severus Snape," she snarls. "Priscilla's sent a Patronus to Dirk. We're going to get you help and you are going to live." She shakes him hard enough to make lights explode behind his eyes. "Do you hear me, Severus?"
He attempts to nod that he does, if only to alleviate the tears now spilling down her cheeks, but, suddenly, not only are the lights gone, but so is Lily, Rookwood, and the rest of the world around him. There is nothing – a familiar nothing. Severus is surprisingly okay with it.
Well, what do you think? Did you like the snake battle? Are you excited for what the next chapter will hold?
Thank you for reading!
Edited: 12/31/19