Chapter Ten: Secrets Revealed
They finally made it to the medical wing, bleeding Snape dragging unpleasantly behind them.
"Dear diary via magic quill;
It is I again, DR. Pomfrey. I'm still working at Hogwart's, but only to gain the attention of the one that I love. I did my hair in two braids today instead of half of one and he didn't even notice. I'm beginning to wonder if his attentions are focused elsewhere with that vile whore, McGonnagal. They're always having their special "staff meetings" and I can see through their little front; they can't pull the gauze bandages over my eyes."
"Um, excuse me?" Cora ventured timidly.
"Honestly! Who does she think she is, wearing those tight black robes all the time? That bun she wears just screams 'I'm a sexy librarian, just pull my hair down and see where I'll take you!' I don't even think her robes are opaque black. She may pretend otherwise, but I'll bet she has him wrapped around her little finger. What hope do I have against such an amoral seductress?"
"A-HEM!" Bridgit loudly cleared her throat.
"OH!" She started, "Y-You girls again? You two are in here more often than Neville." Madame Pomfrey quickly slammed shut her painfully gigantic diary. "What seems to be the- oh my god! Severus!" She was truly aghast. "What happened to you?"
As Snape was clearly unable to respond, Bridgit fielded that question.
"Uhhh...A statue fell on him." She lied.
"After being repeatedly attacked by a strange man with no head!" Cora added with much gusto. Not usually the purveyor of truth, it made her feel more righteous than usual.
"What a dramatic turn of events! For one so young as this to be in the clutches of a deformed monster." Madame Pomfrey got a dreamy look on her face.
"I think she's fantasizing now." Cora whispered to Bridgit.
"Could she have been writing about Snape?" Bridgit raised her eyebrows.
"Excellent." Cora hissed. "If there's a potential love interest in his life, all the more reason he won't want his fat photo to get out."
"Anyway!" Madame Pomfrey snapped back to reality, "It seems I have some vital organ reconstruction to attend to." She levitated him into the next room.
"Oh yeah. Levitation." Cora dawned on the idea and smacked her fist into her palm. "Ahhhhh!" She groaned in pain.
"I sense injuries!" Madame Pomfrey creepily scuttled back into the room and took a quick look at Cora's hand before she had a chance to hide it. "Don't worry, I shall tend to that after I have stabilized the good professor." She went into a private room.
"Did you hear that?" Bridgit leaned against the wall outside. "The 'good' professor." She smirked.
"I'm having my doubts! Snape would never be interested in Madame Pomfrey. She's got a Liverpool accent and a sketchy class background." Cora objected.
"Weren't you listening? That's just a front to keep prying eyes away from their steamy, sweaty snogging with the chance of more to come." Bridgit giggled, absolutely clueless about what she'd just said since no boy within a thirty-mile radius would touch her.
"Gross." Cora made a face. They were too old to be sexy.
"What's gross?"
"I'll tell you when you're older."
There was an awkward pause during which Cora was painfully aware of the sharp throbbing in her electrocuted hand and the other, which had been gnawed on.
"My hands hurt." She whined.
Bridgit simply held up her hand, still somewhat vigorously spurting blood.
"I'm dizzy." She mentioned.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
A horrible, blood-curdling scream came from the private room that was so terrifying, the two could never thereafter be entirely convinced that it truly belonged to Snape.
Followed by further screaming, Madame Pomfrey emerged cheerfully from the room.
"Right then, who's next!" She smiled.
Bridgit and Cora looked squeamishly at each other.
"Well, Cora's hand is charred and the other is gnawed on. It looks very painful, I think she should go next." Bridgit meekly offered.
"But Bridgit is losing blood much faster than I am. True I'm in discomfort, but her bleeding hasn't stopped and just a few minutes ago she mentioned how dizzy she felt. I think that's very concerning." Cora coolly offered her superior answer.
"Oh girls, you're so sweet. I remember when I used to have female friends, before we started to notice boys. Then they all inexplicably became bitches." She sighed. "Oh well. Bridgit, shall we?"
"Oh God." Bridgit inaudibly murmured. "I'm sorry that I've been so bad. Please find room for me, I'll be coming soon."
"Oh dear, there's nothing to be afraid of. Why, magical medicine has advanced beyond the barbaric practices of muggles." She tittered, leading Bridgit into another private room.
Bridgit gave an imploring last look back at her friend.
"Bye!" Cora waved cheerfully.
Cora stood there, slightly nervous, but certain she was making a mountain out of a molehill. After all, Dumbledore only chose the best and Snape was probably just a wuss.
"Oh, my. That is a rather deep cut." Madame Pomfrey's voice echoed down the hall. "I'm afraid that hand's going to have to come off!"
"What?" Bridgit exclaimed.
"Nice and quick, so you don't fret."
There was a heavy thud, like the sound of a meat cleaver.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" That same curious scream, only in a different range. Yet, how could it be Bridgit?
"Now hold still dear." Madame Pomfrey sounded a little harried as the screaming continued, followed by the sounds of running and furniture being knocked over.
As the running continued a jet of blood suddenly sprayed from inside the room out the open door and up the wall.
Cora stared in horror at the blood, heard the chase stop and the screams diminish to whimpering.
"There, there, see? That wasn't so bad."
She heard Bridgit crying.
"Well, I suppose I'll have to see about your friend now. But first: getting the right tools." Cora heard the sound of something metal being sharpened upon a moving stone wheel.
"Forgive me Bridgit!" Cora wept and turned, running out the door.
She ran right into the unforgiving, yet quite ample bosom of Sammy. Bouncing back, she hit the floor, somewhat dazed.
"Watch where you're going, idiot." Sammy grunted a greeting.
"Oh, what happened to your hands?" Reagan looked horrified.
"Bridgit! Bridgit!" Cora sobbed. "Let me away from here before she does it to me too!"
"Cora, you're not making any sense." Sammy sighed.
"Oh Cora, calm down. I know doctors are scary, but you're a big girl now. She's only trying to help you. Besides, Dumbledore has a very competent staff and I'm sure Madame Pomfrey is up to date on the best of magical high school nurse healing techniques." Reagan tried to calm Cora down.
"Don't let her do it!" Cora wailed. "Please! Please! I won't go in there. You can't make me!"
"Oh, for the love of Merlin. Reagan, can you just heal her? I'm sick of hearing her whine. She can realize what an idiot she's been when Bridgit gets back." Sammy ran her hand roughly through her hair.
"Well, I don't want to step on anyone's toes, but…just this once." Reagan tilted his head to one side.
"Oh, Reagan. You're an angel." Cora sobbed quietly.
"Moon….healing…..activation." Reagan called out in a soft, melodic voice, spinning around gracefully.
Pleased by his dance, the moon spirits allowed him to call upon their powers and, as Cora felt soothing, cool water coming across her hands, her skin began to regrow and regenerate.
Relieved beyond belief, she collapsed to the ground, still quietly sobbing.
"Now, let's go see what a good job Madame Pomfrey did on Bridgit." Sammy hauled Cora to her feet and dragged her towards the room against her struggles. Reagan followed behind to make sure she couldn't escape.
They entered the room just as Madame Pomfrey stood, brandishing some kind of magical meat cleaver.
"Oh, I see you already took care of her for me. Thank you, Reagan. It always tires me out when I have to heal too many people in one day." She smiled.
"Tell me about it." Reagan laughed, somehow thinking the knife was for lunch preparation.
"As you can see, Bridgit's hand is re-growing quite nicely." She gestured to Bridgit, who, pale and trembling, was sitting in the corner nursing a thing that could best be described as a fleshy tentacle.
"I'm sorry, what?" Reagan tilted his head to one side.
"Her hand. It's re-growing quite well. You see, it was cut quite badly, and to avoid infection, I simply decided to start from scratch. Much more efficient!" She giggled.
Words cannot describe the looks of horror on Sammy and Reagan's faces; Sammy, because she would have to eat crow, Reagan at the butchery of his art.
"Let's go see how Snape's doing!" Madame Pomfrey suggested. "I'm sure you've noticed that we do things a little differently here, so I'll let you have a look at Snape, Reagan, so you can observe for your education. You really are a very promising young healer."
They followed in stunned silence, except for Bridgit who couldn't walk. As soon as they entered the room, Cora fainted. Snape was laying down on a table, staring in horror at his open chest cavity, where several pounds of flesh appeared to be forming into new organs. He gaped in horror at his own beating heart.
"As soon as I've closed him up, you can visit him and Bridgit in the recovery room."
"Fascinating." Reagan said stiffly. "Well, I can see you're busy. We'll go wait in the waiting room." Reagan ushered Sammy, carrying a freshly out Cora, into the waiting room.
"Oh my God." Sammy breathed, once they were out of earshot.
Reagan, too stunned to speak, said nothing and kept walking.
Several hours later, Madame Pomfrey, seeming quite tired, informed Cora, Sammy and Reagan that they could now visit Snape and Bridgit in the recovery room. As they entered, Reagan immediately went to look at Bridgit's hand. The fleshy tentacle had split in five and it would become a fully functional hand by the time it was morning. For some reason feeling sorry for Snape, Reagan also made sure that his organs were okay.
"I'm sorry we brought you here, sir. It was Dumbledore's orders." Cora said numbly.
"It's best not to speak of it." Snape murmured, still feeling quite weak.
It was indeed best not to speak of it, as this sudden turn in medicinal practices was actually his fault. Disgusted by her quaint homeopathic medicine (which was totally ripping off his potions skillz anyway) he surreptitiously took out a subscription to "Magical Medicine Monthly" in her name to imply that she needed to use "real" medicine. Unfortunately for him, "real" medicine was far more invasive than he had ever expected. He felt only a tiny bit bad that he was responsible for the pain of others…especially when they would be whining about it, probably to him, for quite some time.
He turned his head slightly to look at Bridgit. She wasn't speaking, still clutching her tentacle arm and staring straight ahead. Well, at least it had some benefits.
"The reason Sammy and I came here is to tell you that we've been reassigned to watch after Harry. Dumbledore has asked the centaurs to look after the school, so you've been reassigned to Snape. It turns out that the headless man is his estranged older brother, Severedhead Snape. He has a criminal record for participating in eco-terrorism. We don't know what his motives at Hogwart's are yet. Unless Snape's running a baby seal boot factory from his living quarters." Reagan sighed, still watching Bridgit in concern. There were some things magic couldn't heal.
"Professor Snape" Snape weakly corrected him.
"Sure. I'll take care of Bridgit, too." Cora shivered a bit.
"Excellent!" Madame Pomfrey clapped her hands together. "Well, I'll go brew us some tea." She went to do so.
"Make sure it's not poison." Sammy spat after her as she left.
Bridgit slowly beckoned Cora over. Cora quickly went to her friend's bedside.
"What is it?"
"The picture." Bridgit rasped. "Show me…the picture."
"Here, anything, buddy." Cora didn't hesitate.
Bridgit, using her last strength, burned it magically. As Bridgit suddenly fell asleep, Cora nodded. After what they had gone through, blackmail was a little too bastardly.