xci. inferno
Harriet blinked. She blinked again—and again, because she could do little else than stare in dumbfounded disbelief at Neville Longbottom standing there with his wand out and pointed toward the Heir of Slytherin.
I must have smacked my head if I'm seeing Longbottom of all people.
He was saying something to her, his lips moving. The words made little sense to Harriet, the syllables and sounds bouncing about in her fuzzy brain like bugs in a jar. "—move, Potter! Move!"
Nothing registered until Elara sprinted forward, her silver eyes wide, panicked, and locked on Harriet. Longbottom fired a bevy of jinxes and hexes at Riddle, each ricocheting off Riddle's shields—and Harriet reached out as if in a dream, snatching hold of Elara's hands, and yanked her out of the way of a returned curse.
This is real. This is happening. They're actually here. I need to—!
Harriet scooped Livi into her arms and scrambled from her knees to her feet. Elara shouted, "Oscausi!" and a blur of white light flew at the Heir, deflected again with a subtle twitch of his wand hand. The rocks it hit cracked along the edges.
"Someone's been practicing Dark magic! Such interesting friends you keep, little Harriet."
Running, Harriet and Elara dodged the Basilisk and Riddle's spellfire, diving behind Longbottom and his faltering shield. "Run!" Harriet yelled at the boy, grabbing a handful of his robes and yanking with all her trembling might. "Run, you idiot!"
"I'm not leaving Luna!"
The Basilisk was turning, tongue lashing, but Riddle hadn't taken a single step forward.
"We have to move!"
A column toppled as the Basilisk reared back, mouth open, fangs extended, forcing Neville into motion. Their footsteps echoed in the narrower corridor like hailstone on a window—but nothing could drown out Riddle's screamed command for the serpent to chase after them.
Neville tried to stop and face it, jerking against the hands holding him back. "Luna needs our help!"
"We can't help her if we're bloody eaten, you absolute twat! Run!"
They bowled around a corner and only Elara's painful grip under Harriet's arm kept her weak legs from giving out. Neville threw an Exploding Charm over his shoulder and nearly clipped them both in his hurry. Books burst into a messy shower of pages and tattered parchment, the sound and resulting shower confusing the Basilisk just long enough for the trio to dash to the Moon Mirror waiting at the corridor's end.
"Open!" Harriet hissed, terrified that it wouldn't, that it'd be another exit-mirror and they'd be pinned in a dead-end with sixty ruddy feet of enraged, blinded snake bearing down upon them—.
Elara pushed them through the glass, and Harriet landed in a crumpled heap, grunting when the stone made contact with her already bloodied chin. Panting, she rolled to her side and with a harsh, slashing motion, cried, "Finestra!"
The mirror shattered into pieces.
"Why would you do that?!" Neville yelped, making as if to grab at the shards before Elara pushed him back. "How are we supposed to get Luna?!"
Harriet didn't reply. She lowered her wand and allowed herself to take a breath, the air cutting into her lungs like a smothered sob. Her muscles continued to jump and seize, painful tremors making it almost impossible to hold herself steady. She cradled Livi close and brought his face nearer her own. He let out a low, plaintive hiss and opened an eye, the pupil widening with the effort. Blood speckled the gem set in his skull, and one of his horns had a large split along the side.
"You were brilliant, Livi," she whispered, stroking his snout. Carefully, she tucked him around her shoulders and under her sweater, warm and out of sight. "Just rest now. We'll get you f-fixed up soon, don't worry."
"Potter—."
Neville was cut off when Elara snapped, "Shut up! God help me if you open your mouth again, Longbottom, they won't find your body!"
"But—!"
"What happened to your face?" Harriet blurted. Neville sported the beginnings of a rather large and swollen black-eye, and Harriet hadn't seen any of Slytherin's curses make it through Neville's shield and connect.
"It broke my hand, that's what happened!" Elara retorted, proffering said hand for Harriet's inspection. One of her fingers had swelled up like Longbottom's lumpy face. "All because of his stupidly hard head!"
"That was your fault, Black—!"
"You imbecile—!"
"Stop it," Harriet demanded, and though her voice was reedy with pain and exhaustion, the pair fell silent. She surveyed the room they'd wound up in and recognized the museum of ancient fossils, a Thunderbird to their right, a golden frame at their backs where the Moon Mirror once hung. Harriet had tried this particular mirror before and had found it didn't open from this side; she knew exactly where the exit back to Riddle and the atrium was.
She must have taken too long in considering their options, because Longbottom shifted from foot to foot, uneasy. "Are you, uh, okay, Potter?"
"No, I'm not bloody okay! Idiot." Harriet took another breath, wincing. "How did you two wind up here? How did you find me without using the Mirrors?"
Scowling, Neville crossed his arms, his wand still clenched in his fist. "Black pushed me in."
"I did not. I struck you, and when you stumbled, you grabbed my arm and pulled me with you!"
"Whatever. I don't know what you mean about the mirrors, Potter. I think the corridors can move like they do in the rest of Hogwarts." He ran a frustrated hand through his hair. "What is this place? It can't be the Chamber—look at all these Ravenclaw emblems!"
Elara scoffed and spoke to Harriet. "This place reads intention, to an extent. Longbottom dashed off looking for Luna and the Aerie eventually brought us there. The Mirrors appear to be a form of shortcut—a means probably utilized by a moderator or librarian in the past."
Harriet just nodded, not at all fussed at the moment to try and understand the Aerie's inner workings. They had more pressing issues.
"We have to move," she told them, trying—and failing—to get upright once more. Elara ducked down and pulled Harriet's arm around her shoulders, helping the shorter witch stand. "We—the Basilisk knows how to get around. It can move through the Mirrors, and—we have to get the Diadem off Luna. I don't know how he's doing it, but he's—the Heir is draining her through it, or killing her, or—. Listen, we need to go this—."
Suddenly, Harriet could hear it again, the dark, slippery susurrations of the Basilisk's mad, ravenous chattering. "Kill the falssse Ssspeaker. Find them, KILL them…."
It was drawing nearer—there! The thump of coils upon the floor caused all three of them to jump as the monster entered the museum through another portal. Harriet let go of Elara and lunged for the aisle, leaping onto the towering brontosaurus' platform, dashing between its legs. Elara and Neville followed—and the Basilisk's answering hiss as it swiveled its mangled head in their direction sounded as loud and as vicious as any lion's roar. Harriet didn't give herself time to think; its weight struck the platform, jarring it, its shadow colder than it should be—and she hurled a hex at the fossil overhead.
Grabbing Neville and Elara by a wrist each, she jumped from the platform as the dinosaur came tumbling down, crashing and splintering, the Basilisk shrieking as it disappeared under a heaving pile of heavy bones. A cloud of dust exploded from the impact and the trio choked on the thick, gritty air, but Harriet could still see the outline of the last Moon Mirror stationed ahead. "We're almost there!"
She hissed at the glass, and again it allowed them passage, Harriet sucking in cold, clean air when she popped out the other side. She didn't hesitate to shatter the mirror like she had the last.
"Why are you doing that, Potter?! You're going to trap us here!"
She bared her teeth at Longbottom as she gripped her broken arm, holding it close to her side. "You weren't so worried about trapping anyone when you pushed me into this bloody place, were you? No, you were right chuffed then. Bigoted prat."
Red suffused Longbottom's sweaty face and blotted the purpling bruise. "You really want to have it out right now? Fine. I was wrong, okay? I was wrong! I'm an arsehole! Now, can you tell me where we are? Why did that freak look like Professor Slytherin? And how are we going to rescue Luna? Or are you planning to slither out of here without even trying—?"
Harriet kicked him in the shin and didn't care that it hurt her foot. Everything else already hurt, so what did it matter? "I don't know, Longbottom, for Merlin's sake! I didn't exactly plan for this, did I?"
"Harriet," Elara intoned, and the shorter witch grimaced, looking away from the Prat Who Lived before she gave in to the urge and kicked him again. "Do you have your Cloak?"
"No, it's in my bag, which I think is outside by that ugly statue."
Elara sighed and wiped her dusty face with her sleeve. Harriet's shoulders grew heavier with every passing second, dragging toward the floor, tears pricking at her eyes against her permission. She was so tired; Harriet had never wanted for a day to be over more than she did right at that moment, and the injustice of it pulled at her as if it had tangible weight. She couldn't leave Luna to die. She didn't know the way out. Her arm hurt—every nerve in her body throbbed, flayed open, and there was almost too much blood and grime on her glasses to see through.
They couldn't stay there. The mirror might be broken, but the Basilisk would find another way around.
"We'll distract him," Neville said, piecing together a patchwork plan of action. "Potter, you're fast—so Black and I will keep hexing him, and you'll get by and sneak over to Luna and take off the Diadem!"
"If you had a half a brain in your fat head you'd know we aren't going to get anywhere near the Diadem. He's not some dimwitted idiot who'll let three kids get one over him." The orange, blazing letters of the wizard's name remained fixed in Harriet's mind as if burnt onto her retinas. I am Lord Voldemort. Tom Marvolo Riddle. She scratched her neck, broken nails dull and uneven against the thicker skin of her scar. "We have to attack Luna."
"What?!"
"Don't be thick, Longbottom. We won't get anywhere attacking the Heir; we gotta get that crown thing off of Luna, and she's the one without a wand. If we knock her down, it should knock the Diadem off."
Harriet didn't know if it'd work. She didn't know if knocking the Diadem off would do anything at all, only that Riddle wouldn't leave Luna's side, and it was the only chance they had of defeating him. They couldn't stand here and waffle over ideas forever; Luna could be dying and the Basilisk would be drawing ever closer.
She looked at the wand clasped tight in her shaky hand. Some part of her didn't want to go back; it was cowardly, but Harriet thought it better to admit the fear than to let it fester. She was afraid. All she had was a smattering of spells all jumbled in her head, a broken arm, and an injured Horned Serpent. She was afraid of failing. Failure didn't mean she'd get a 'T' on an essay or detention; people would die—one of her best friends, the Boy Who Lived, Lovegood.
Harriet didn't know what to do.
Neville moved, charging on with that blind Gryffindor assurance could be almost admirable in the right situations—though, Harriet didn't think now was the best time for it. She and Elara exchanged one wary glance and set off after him. The light continued to gleam, steady as a well-stoked hearth, and they walked through intermittent bands of gold and shadow as the corridor widened again, and they returned to the barren atrium where the Heir of Slytherin lurked.
Harriet caught the barest glimpse of disbelief in the wizard's red eyes when Neville came strolling out from among the pillars. "Returned to die, have you?"
"We're not leaving without Luna! Let her go!"
Riddle laughed. "What pointless grandstanding? This is where sentiment gets you: nowhere at all. Stumbling right back into my hands—."
Neville made a noise as if to argue with the madman—but Harriet surged forward and threw her hex, following it with another, and another. Riddle's arm moved faster than her eyes could track, and the hex slammed into his nonverbal shield hard enough to drag his feet on the stones. Snarling, Riddle returned fire—that same, horrid red curse sailing far too close to her head—and Elara tried hitting Luna with a Jelly-Legs Curse, but she was too tentative and unsure. Riddle flicked a spell at the column she hid behind—and it suddenly lunged, sprouting crushing arms, and knocked Elara into the floor.
"Elara!" Harriet cried. "Bombarda!" The spell blasted the stone pillar into smithereens, small chips and broken bits falling on their heads.
"Enough!" Riddle hissed, and Harriet couldn't tell if he spoke in English or Parseltongue, the nuance of the difference lost to his rage. "Everte Statum!"
A sudden, overcoming wave of force threw Harriet and Neville flat on their backs with Elara. Harriet's vision swam.
"You think to best me? Mere children against the greatest wizard who ever lived?!" Riddle seethed. "You may have outmaneuvered the Basilisk—a stupid beast—but you will not make a mockery of me!"
Neville groaned and hexed him again. Harriet watched the spell hit Riddle's shield, red color washing over the transparent surface, and she saw how the shield tapered and thinned the nearer it got to the Heir's feet. Behind him stood Luna, and behind her, the Moon Mirror.
Memories of Defense class came swinging back like physical blows, Professor Slytherin's cold voice all too like the Heir of Slytherin's, and in the recollections she relived the fleeting apprehension and fear that had filled her when she'd faced her instructor and jinxed his legs. She remembered his rage. "Aim for his feet," Snape had told her and she had. Lying on the floor, Harriet realized she was going about this the wrong way; she kept slinging incantations head-on at the Heir like a Gryffindor bashing his skull against a wall, trying to chip away at the bricks. She had to be cleverer. She had to—.
Twisting, Harriet rolled onto her bad arm, grit her teeth, and swung her wand low, parallel with the floor. "Flipendo!"
The Heir acted on instinct, his shield rising again, angled toward Harriet—and she saw his eyes widen as the spell skirted the stones underfoot, caught a wide groove, and clipped upward beneath his Charm. It struck the mirror, bounced, and then—.
"No!"
Luna toppled—thrown hard—and when she hit the floor, the Diadem popped off her head and skittered away. For a second, the Heir stared, reaching, and then he vanished as if he'd never been. Luna's wand fell with a clatter.
Harriet let out a ragged breath, her ribs aching, head swimming, waiting for a curse or a hex or—something, something that never came. "Luna!" Neville shouted once he regained his feet, running to the girl's side, and so Harriet shoved away the woozy feeling threatening to knock her out cold and went to check on Elara. Her friend sat up and dabbed at a bloody spot on her brow, muttering darkly under her breath as she studied the sticky stain on her gloves.
"All right, Elara?"
"Fine, thank you. How is Lovegood?"
Shrugging, Harriet wobbled over to Longbottom next. He was trying to shake Luna awake, but she remained unresponsive. "She's cold," he commented, fretting and clearly unnerved. "But she's breathing, so she should be okay, right? Once we get her to Madam Pomfrey?"
Harriet glanced at the Diadem then, sitting so quiet and innocuous on its own, the light glittering in its pretty gems. She wondered if they should take it with them, if they should bring it just in case it was needed to make Luna better—but then she shook herself and looked away. No, it was obviously cursed, and they'd better leave it behind until she could find a professor and let them handle it.
Neville and Harriet stood and together got Luna balanced between the two of them, Livi hissing a tired, wounded protest as the witch's limp arm came to rest against his coils.
"It's okay, Livi. We're going to get out of here, somehow."
Starting, Longbottom gave her a long, measured look as they set off, Elara following a step behind. "…you're a Parselmouth."
"You didn't notice that earlier? How perceptive of you. What's your point?"
"You're not the Heir of Slytherin?"
"Of course not." Harriet scowled and took a breath, finding it harder and harder to get enough air. "And no, I'm not related to Professor Slytherin, either. I've been able to talk to snakes even before I knew there was such thing as magic."
"Wait…before you knew about magic? How's that possible? Were you raised by Muggles?"
Bloody hell, Harriet swore at herself. "Shut up and lift, Longbottom."
"Kill…Kill…KILL…."
"Fine, just stop hissing at me, Potter."
"I didn't—." Harriet's heart lurched in her chest. She almost dropped Luna in her haste to look back the way they'd come. The Diadem still rested at the foot of the Moon Mirror—and Harriet knew then that she'd made a mistake. She hadn't thought to shatter the glass as she had with the others, and the surface was rippling like an upset pond. "It's coming. Oh, shite—!"
Neville took one glance at the shifting mirror with the dark shape about to burst through and started running, dragging Luna and Harriet along with him. The Basilisk reappeared, its body slamming into the floor, shaking the whole of the Aerie around them as the blind serpent dove forward. It opened its maw, its fangs poised, dripping venom, and lunged.
Elara skittered to a halt. Face set, she slashed her wand through the air and shouted, "Ignis Monstrum!"
The spell started with a ripple of heat; Harriet felt it touch her face despite the distance between her and the other witch, a shimmer hovering at the wand's end, chased by a gout of red, glaring sparks. Flames spooled like threads of brilliant, glowing yarn, knitting together in a pattern faster and faster until a body swelled from the bubbling, writhing heat. It howled, that amorphous thing formed of fire and teeth and scouring claws, joined by another and another, the inferno building with astounding speed. The head of it seemed to open wide its yawning jaws—wider than the charging snake—and it swallowed the Basilisk whole, the snake disappearing in a flash of green scales and rasping screeches.
The fire didn't stop. It kept going—smoke rising, thickening, the whole of Harriet's vision disappearing in a confusing swirl of orange and black and gray, and through the howling she heard a different noise: a scream, distant and wretched, the wail of a dying thing giving its last breath. Set curled from Harriet's feet, stretching into the blaze, and she sensed a strange tug, followed by a sudden, intense silence.
What was that?
"Stop it, Black!" Neville yelled, the fire reflected in his wide eyes. "Put it out!"
Elara drew her arm back and tried to end the spell, but it kept going, resisting, impervious to several canceling spells. A curl of flame whipped back and Elara cried out, the fire grazing her hand. She dropped her wand and it vanished into the monstrous inferno—the inferno now coming straight toward them.
They ran. The smoke burned in Harriet's lungs, in her eyes. Luna's weight felt like a thousand tonne weight strangulating her neck, and no matter how fast they went, the fire seemed to get closer and closer. It whined, snapped, nipped at their heels, embers catching their shins, smoldering the edges of their robes. Sweat poured down Harriet's back, over her face, in her eyes. She shut them, unable to see anything at all through the haze, and just ran, forcing every bit of strength into her legs and pounding feet.
She collided with something solid and would have yelped if she'd had the breath for it. She made to reel back—when an arm came around Harriet's shoulders, a large hand with its fingers tangled in her hair turning her head, hiding her face from the blaze. The pounding in her ears sounded unnaturally loud.
"Aculei Ignis!" bellowed a deep, familiar voice.
The air whipped itself into a frenzy and Harriet clutched to Luna and the sturdy form in front of her, holding on for dear life. Higher and higher the wind coursed, and the stronger the wind grew, the louder the fire howled. It surrounded them, seeming to come from the walls or the floor, and Harriet waited for it to end, for the flames to sink their teeth in and cook them all alive, and yet—.
And yet, silence fell. The wind ceased as abruptly as it'd begun, and cold air touched the damp nape of Harriet's neck. She took a shuddering breath.
The last thing Harriet registered was the feel of rough black wool sliding against her cheek, and then nothing at all.
A/N: Harriet, CH 53 - "Hey don't do that spell, looks dangerous."
Elara, CH 91 - "…Whoops."
So I made that discord! The link's on my author page, since it won't post here D:
