Chapter 11: Magic Mushrooms
You have to be careful when you're out in the wilderness. You never know what might turn up.
"I hate mornings."
The husky wizard turned in his tracks and regarded his son with disappointment. "Buck up, lad! Groan any louder and I'll turn you in to the toad you sound like. Now keep up. We're headed into Kneazle territory; best to stick close."
A hundred paces behind him the burly youth gave a long-suffering noise and hefted his pack, redoubling his steps to catch up with the older wizard. He wore a Herbologist Apprentice cowl and had the gear to prove it. The gear was proving to be quite the problem, actually. Young Farley Longbottom had been forbidden to levitate his pack behind him. His father, Algie Longbottom, preferred to use magic sparingly despite the purity of his blood and supposed magic surplus it afforded. The two had hiked nearly two miles up away from their home to harvest natural Grey Mushrooms which grew in great numbers around Kneazle territory.
Farley hated the hike. Sure, there was nature and all its splendor, but nature would be better with Cooling Charms and maybe a handful of Fizzing Whizbees.
"Keep up, Farley!" Came the voice of his father from further up the path. "Or should I have left you with little Neville?"
Farley groaned loudly but jogged to catch up with his sire. "Please don't compare me to that magicless lump, Pa."
He jumped a foot in the air when his father turned and got him with a stinging Hex.
"Yeouch!"
The older wizard brandished his wand menacingly. "None of that, now, you hear! That boy finally showed an aptitude for magic! Caught him singing Mandrakes to sleep the other day. He's been such a quiet lad, but that's good magic!"
Farley's lip twisted in a half-scowl. "But Pa! He's always been useless. You said that yourself for years!"
"Neville's a late bloomer. It's your Uncle's blood, it is," Algie Longbottom rumbled, his deep brass voice sending several birds scattered to the treetops, "Frank didn't manifest magic until he was nearly Hogwarts age! Grammy and Grandpa had given him up for a Squib. Went on to become a fine wizard! Everyone who knew Frank said so. My brother turned out to be a powerful wizard, no matter it took him nearly ten years to show it. Some folk just take a little time, Farley, like Mandrakes. How long do they take to mature?"
"About a year," Farley said promptly, "Depends on the species and care."
Algie Longbottom nodded in approval.
"Good answer. Now, what about these mushrooms we're here to harvest? Tell me a bit about them."
"Well, er, they grow in groups," Farley answered a bit more slowly, "They… they're, em. They come in different, eh, pods… No, wait! Shades of grey. Different shades, not pods. Uh…" Algie waited patiently as Farley cast his gaze around as if the answer would pop up out of the ground to help him.
His son stopped in his tracks and his jaw dropped.
Algie sensed something was wrong and casually drew his wand.
"The mushrooms, son," Algie prompted, keeping a gentle but firm tone, "You were saying?"
Farley had started to shake. He stood rooted to the spot, eyes glued on the sight just around a pair of great pines which had grown together at the trunk. Algie Longbottom stepped forward, a firm grip on his wand.
"Don't make a sound, Farley," he cautioned, "Get behind me if you can."
The younger wizard rose a trembling hand and pointed wordlessly at the sight before him. Algie followed his son's gaze and felt his own jaw drop.
Curled at the base of the pines were two huge snakes, both thicker than a tree trunk. One had Python patterns and was huge for its species, but the other had red scales along its brow, suggesting something horrible—a young Basilisk. Algie Longbottom could tell from the steady rise and fall of their bodies that both were asleep. Thinking quickly, he took his son's shoulder and prepared to Apparate. The spell was on his lips when the snakes shifted slightly, and something came into view that made him choke on his spell.
The arm of an eight-year old boy.
Farley nearly let out a scream. His father cast a quick Silencio, and then the most carefully aimed Accio of his life. The boy slipped gently from the thick coils of both snakes and glided soundlessly towards the two frozen Longbottom men. He looked to be unconscious but miraculously unharmed. Time seemed to move in slow motion as the boy floated in their direction, hovering inches above the dried leaves and twigs on the forest floor. Any sound might wake the two snakes. Algie felt sweat bead across his brow as the boy came slowly across the clearing between them.
A meter away from them, the boy's eyes snapped open, and he let out a wordless cry.
Everything jolted into action. The two massive shapes started to writhe awake and a smaller red snake shot up over the pair, throwing itself towards the boy. Algie reached forward, grabbing the boy by the wrist and his son in his other hand, and Apparated away.
They landed in the safety of their Greenhouses two and a half miles away. The boy was screaming.
In fact, he was hissing, flailing ferociously in Algie's arms. Farley mouthed wordlessly, still under his father's silencing spell. The elder Longbottom let go the young boy and canceled the spell over Farley. Immediately the tow-haired boy flung himself at the Greenhouse doors.
"Woah, lad! Take it easy. You're safe now."
The boy made an unintelligible noise and banged on the doors.
"What's wrong with him, Pa?" Farley asked, "Why's he spitting at us?"
"He might be having a fit. Quick! Fetch your Ma," Algie shouted, his tone booking no argument. Farley turned and ran for the door leading to the main house. The older man turned and Stunned the boy; he slumped to the ground in a pile.
After arranging the boy on the ground in a more comfortable array, Algie Longbottom used his wand to summon parchment and a quill. He was writing up an urgent note to a team of Magical Snake Handlers when his wife Enid burst into the Greenhouse. Her normally neat auburn locks were in a wild halo as she ran to her husband's side. Farley wasn't far behind, levitating a small trunk behind him.
"Good, you're here. Farley! Find Bentley. Tell him to take this to the MSH Headquarters in Kent. It's urgent and requires an immediate reply. He's to wait for one and return right away."
He thrust the folded parchment into his son's hands. Farley nodded and landed his mother's trunk. Then he took off back into the house to search for the family owl.
Enid had dropped to her knees next to the boy. "Oh! Oh, Algie! The poor dear—did he faint, or…"
"I Stunned him," the husky man reported, "He was having a fit before you came. Farley found him lying amongst the coils of two great snakes—" He stopped speaking abruptly. Enid paid him no mind, already sorting hastily through the vials and stoppered bottles from her trunk.
She was uncorking a violet potion when a gentle tapping caused her to look up at the glass walls of the Greenhouse.
A pair of wide yellow eyes stared balefully back.
Farley Longbottom, panting from having run around the house twice to find Bentley and send him off with his father's note, returned to the Greenhouses to find both his parents standing still as stone, their features frozen in horror. They could not move to answer him when he called their names. They did not respond to Rennervate or Episkey.
With the family owl gone and his parents paralyzed, Farley fell to his knees and did what he had so often teased his cousin for; he cried.
Harry woke slowly, his head aching and sore. He stretched, feeling the ground beneath his back and smooth scales of his friends on either side of him. The air was cool and damp. Harry yawned and felt Nagini's scales slide against him. Her head came up over her green and brown body to rest at Harry's knee. Her tongue tickled as she tasted the morning air.
"Good morning, Harry Potter."
"Good morning, Nagini," Harry said sleepily. He reached up to pet the snake at his other side; Sahensha wiggled but did not wake. "Nagini, why does my head hurt?" Harry asked. "It feels like I ran into a tree again."
He felt a slithering by his waist, then the familiar weight of Indiis made its way up and around his upper arm, and the slim red snake came winding to his usual spot. "You did not hit your head, Emperor," Indiis hissed. "You were attacked."
Harry sat up, wide awake.
"Attacked?"
Sahensha's coils moved slowly, squeezing and relaxing as he came awake as well. Indiis coiled protectively around Harry's shoulders, tongue flickering in and out, eyes looking around diligently. Beside them Nagini nodded her head. "Two humans came, one big, one small. The big one made you float. They took you and vanished." Harry listened intently, spellbound by the story of his capture. "We followed your smell. We found you in a big glass house. Two big humans had you."
"How did I escape?" Harry asked, "How come I don't remember anything?"
"You did not seem awake," Nagini recalled, "You slept."
"The Emperor was awake when he was stolen," Sahensha hissed angrily, rising to rub his scales against a large tree. "We all heard his cry."
"Perhaps you fell," Indiis suggested, "and hit your head."
Harry rubbed the back of his head. It did hurt a bit, as though he'd fallen down. "That makes sense, I guess," he murmured. He turned and looked at the long green snake. "Tell me more! What was this house made of glass? Where are these people? How did we come to be free again?"
Indiis laughed softly. Harry looked at his friend, surprised. "What is it?"
"I remember when we used to ask you for stories, Emperor," Indiis recalled fondly, "Under moonlight, in the tall green grass. You always told the same story, of the snake who would come and take you away on an adventure."
Harry forgot his headache and laughed.
"I remember that!" he said with a smile. "It was a good story, wasn't it?"
"This was not a good story," Sahensha said with a bitter temper. "We failed you, Emperor Harry." He dipped his snout low. Harry turned to face him and pet his scales reassuringly.
"What's all this, then? No-body failed. We're all here, aren't we? We're all alright now. Isn't that right? Nagini? Indiis?"
The other two snakes agreed with little nods. Harry picked up Sahensha's big head in his hands and rubbed his cheek against the deep purple scars across his friend's cheeks. Sahensha kept his eyes shut, mindful of the Emperor's closeness. Harry spoke fondly.
"Don't feel bad. I'm sorry if I scared you. I won't let anyone else take me away like that."
The Basilisk made a noise of content and bumped Harry gently with his nose.
Harry laughed and ran a hand through the short red feathers poking up out of his friend's head.
"Maybe one day I'll have red hair like you," Harry said as he stood. Sahensha perked up at the compliment.
They started walking and slithering together away from where they'd been resting. Nagini glanced behind them only once. The tall house of glass glistened in the distance. Inside, there were two humans still as stone, and one human hiding, who had smelt strongly of fear and urine. They had gathered the Emperor from where he lay limp on the ground and brought him away from that place to this one.
She turned her back to it and shifted her mighty coils to catch up with the little boy ahead of her, walking side by side with one of the most fearsome snakes in the world.
End Chapter