Shadow Wind, Dotan

Facing the water
Bodies are cold
Hitting the bottom
Floating across the ocean
We dive in the waves of hope
Drown as the world is floating

In this city of time
With no time to win
We all got caught by the shadow wind, shadow wind
Through the walls of blinds
Running past our skin
We all got caught by the shadow wind, shadow wind

Harry had begun to realise as the hours ticked by that he was still unable to take control of his body. His emotions and sensations split into a million tiny pieces. He felt like he was rolling in the glass inside his head. The thing was in a similar state; both of them shattered and shell-shocked.

He'd been put in a bed in a darkened room and left alone by an increasingly distraught Narcissa. He didn't know how many hours he'd laid there, but by the time the door opened again, spilling candlelight into the room, night had fallen outside.

Cassiopeia: barefoot and creeping across the hardwood, carrying a lit candlestick that she placed on the bedside while sitting next to him on the ornate four-poster. He registered all of this numbly with his peripherals.

She was scanning him with her hands, Harry could feel her magic prickling his skin as she moved.

"Ah. What have you done," she whispered.

She didn't try to rouse him. Instead, she left the room, taking the light with her.

Eventually exhaustion won out over the intense disarray of his head, and he fell into something like sleep.

When he woke, he was still trapped in his head with the thing, neither of them able to form a coherent thought; emotions scrambled and mixed; memories fragmented and wildly confusing.

He could hear a hushed conversation outside the door. A man and a woman, arguing, it sounded like. He got pieces of sentences as he stared at the intricately patterned white ceiling.

"-I'm not his keeper, you've barely told me the half-" the woman said.

"-In there I am liable to choke the life from him myself-" the man said.

"-Told you, you should. I'll do it right now if you're suddenly too squeamish, far more trouble than it's-" she began, interrupted by the sound of a slap, a pause, another slap, then silence.

The Boy Who Lived was aware of the thing in his head going haywire only in the vaguest sense, unable to grasp the meaning of any of it.

'I. Need. Your. Help. With. This. Wake UP!'

At that moment the door opened, and Cassiopeia entered, alone, levitating a tray in front of her as she entered. She opened the heavy emerald green curtains with a flick of her hand, filling the room with moonlight, then lit the small chandelier above their heads.

She sat beside him and forced three potions down his throat, making him swallow with magic. She ran her fingers over his head again, spiking his brain while frowning deeply.

"Still in there, snake boy?" She muttered while she worked. Neither Harry nor the thing were able to respond. She left shortly after, leaving the room lit.

Harry had no way to tell how much time had passed before he became aware of his own consciousness, of his situation, of what had come before it. Their emotions had mixed into a concoction that was poisoning him. Still trapped in his head.

He could see that his magic was shattered. Ruined. So was the second magical core. Depleted entirely by- the thing was trampling his thoughts; frantic, flinging around among the shattered pieces.

'If we don't fix this… I don't- Harry, I- need you to focus. Help me.'

'How?' Panic was the only thing he could clearly feel; his body gasping for breath; his eyes rolling back in his head. Out of their control.

'I don't… know. I- don't know,' it was still scrambling for the pieces, like sand. Pouring uselessly from both it and Harry's grip; nothing happening when he tried to cast, tried to move.

'What do we do. What do we do?' Harry kept repeating.

It seemed lost, speechless.

'Please- what do we do?' He tried again, desperation seizing him.

His magic couldn't be gone. He had to move. He couldn't be trapped there. His body was thrashing; he could feel it from far away. Revolting due to the panic, the adrenaline, not to his command.

'I'll do whatever you tell me- I'll do it. Please,' the silence was scaring him more than anything, the way he could feel it struggling for a solution. Finding none.

'…Please,' Harry's body continued to convulse without a pilot while true fear washed over them.

He realized he could feel hands on him; felt something like magic seeping into him. Cold and unfamiliar. Freezing his muscles and his mind as though suddenly caught in a glue trap. His thoughts moved in slow motion as a woman he'd never seen before appeared, inches from his face. Eyes glowing faintly green as she held both his hands; the full weight of her on his chest, grounding him. Her short black hair hung on either side of his ears; her face all he could see.

His breathing slowly returned to normal, his thoughts moving through molasses. When she seemed satisfied that they were still, she began to speak. Slowly, purposefully, in Parseltongue.

"Coiled like a clod, his eyes the home of hate."

'Nagini,' it said as soon as it heard her voice, still caught in her trap; unable to make sense of it.

"Where rich the harvest bows, he lies in wait. Linking earth's death and music, mate with mate," she was holding their face, eyes brighter.

"Is it lure, or warning? Those small bells may sing like Ariel sirens, poised on viewless wing, to lead stark life where mailed death is king."

By then her strange magic had stilled them completely. Caught mesmerized under her gaze as she began to shift and contort, her skin turning to scales; her body lengthening as she continued to speak.

"Else nature's voice, in that cold, earthy thrill, bids good avoid the venomed fang of ill,
and life and death fight equal in her will."

Now fully serpent, she drew back and struck him twice in the middle of his chest. The venom burned instantly, spreading like acid through his ribcage, up his neck, into his head while he remained motionless, eyes locked on the snake. She released them from her trap; allowed them to think, and Harry panicked.

'Did she just kill us?!'

'No. No. Follow my lead. Focus on me,' it was tugging on his consciousness.

The grains in his head; the dead magic, the fragments of pain, fear, hate, and confusion, had begun to move under Nagini's influence, swept into it. Her poison clouding their senses. He lost threads of himself in it; tiny shards ripping strings off; lost in the cyclone of it while his vision slowly blurred. Heart rate slowed. Harry tried to keep a hold on his mind; on the thing in it, but he was stripped to nothingness. And so was it. Everything torn to shreds and still whipping with force inside his head as his senses and his consciousness gave in.

"-Know I don't even know. I'm not a healer, and even if we did pop into the ward at Saint fucking Mungo's do you think they'd say 'Oh, yep, saw this exact thing twice last Wednesday.'"

Harry didn't feel… Right.

'I'm just going to preface this with the fact that- listen to me- the alternative was losing our magic and the ability to ever do more than blink and breathe.'

The Boy Who Lived felt around in his head, startled to find it all wrong.

'What… Is that?' Every grain of his magic -and that of the thing in his head- had been drawn into the middle of his mind; suspended, thrashing, combined with all he had felt, all it had felt, glued together by Nagini's power and her venom.

'That is… I don't know,' it told him.

"He's waking up. Come and find me before morning."

Harry's body jerked when he recognized the voice, and he was all at once horrified to hear it and pleased that his limbs had responded.

"Slowly there," Cassiopeia said, "You got… Bit by a snake."

"The… School," Harry bit out.

"Pardon?"

"School," he tried again, mouth thick.

"You're going to drink this and go back to sleep, okay?"

"No," he said, but she forced a potion down his throat anyway.

In seconds he was sunk back into unconsciousness.

When he woke the next time it was the familiar, angry hunger that roused him. He opened his eyes and rolled blindly, falling off the bed and hitting the floor. The ache felt days old. He struggled to remember when he'd last cast it. To remember where he even was.

His body went rigid as it dawned on him.

In a white armchair slightly too small for her, spilling over the sides, was Nagini in serpent form. She watched them, and Harry simultaneously crawled away and asked her "How?" in Parseltongue, which served to freeze him again.

He hadn't intended to speak. Least of all in Parseltongue. He had no reason to ask her 'how' anything, in that moment.

Harry's hand lifted to his face, but he hadn't willed it to.

"No," he whispered, "No."

'This is better than the alternative,' it could feel his panic rising, 'Do not cast. Just breathe.'

It was breathing for him when he refused, while he tried to scramble backwards. Steady, measured breaths juxtaposed his wild eyes.

'Listen to me, listen, you're okay. Do not cast.'

Harry realised that Nagini was close and tried to crawl away, but his limbs disobeyed. He felt like he was anything but okay as she reached his feet, sliding up his legs as he watched; while he was fighting the thing in his head, rendered frozen by them both. He could feel the same cold seeping into him, slowing his mind and body to a crawling stop as he fell back. Nagini coiled herself on his chest and held them both there, stuck inside and out.

After what felt like an hour, she released the magic but didn't get off his chest. She was large enough that breathing was almost a struggle. He wasn't strong enough to lift her off, or even free his arms. Not that the thing in his head was letting him move as they struggled for control.

'I need to know you understand, Harry, what I am saying to you,' it said, 'Whatever this is, it is fragile. It needs time. As much as we can give it. Do you hear me?'

'Just take it. I can't- do this. Just take over.' Harry's brain was fried, exhausted by his emotions, panic wearing his mind thin as he failed to comprehend everything that had happened. Everything he'd done. The consequences were still unseen, but he was certain they would be devastating.

'I am sorry. I have tried.'

'Try harder,' Harry had tried to command it, but he begged instead, 'Make it stop. Tom. Make it stop. Make. It. STOP. MAKE IT STOP!'

"Nagini, I need something to calm this," Harry's voice said in Parseltongue, once again without his permission.

"Yes. It is coming."

It came in the form of Narcissa, minutes later, skirting the snake who hadn't moved from his chest, looking far more distraught than the last time they'd seen her. The thing swallowed the potion for him while Harry screamed inside his head.

He'd had to guess how long he'd been sedated for. Judging from the unrelenting need in him, over ten days. Each time Harry would become conscious the thing in his head would beg him not to use his magic -while they both fought for control- eventually leading to more sedation. Nagini was a sentry; the serpent was asleep on his legs at all times.

Over and over. Each time he woke the agony worse; until he and the thing were screaming, clawing, biting, and spitting when they came to.

Until they finally let him wake up what felt like weeks later. Strangely in the grass. In the dark, lit only by a half-moon. He heard multiple voices chanting as he tried to fight his way upright. The pain twisted him physically, worse than he remembered. Wards were being constructed and strengthened around him. While Nagini, as a serpent, was coiled nearby, within the wards. He struggled to look at who was chanting, standing around him in a circle. He could feel something… Pulling in his gut. Tiny in comparison to the all-consuming need, but enough to pull his attention for a fraction of a second.

Cassiopeia, Narcissa, Draco, Bellatrix, and…

'Wait. Wait until they are ready,' the voice told him, both of them desperate as Harry locked eyes on the Dark Lord, heavily cloaked, face hidden. He was not looking at Harry; focused on constructing massive wards around the Chosen One and the Maledictus. A much larger version of the solid wards Harry had summoned.

Nagini was twisting at his feet, convulsing, thrashing, until she came to stand as a woman. She helped him stay upright, leaning her weight into him and holding his face, tearing his attention from Voldemort. He hadn't taken a breath in what must have been minutes, judging by the way his head swam between her thin fingers as she pulled his face down to look at her, cold seeping into his cheeks at her touch.

"Now," she told them, eyes glowing. They obeyed.

A sonic boom tore from them. A screaming darkness, consuming all sound. A nuclear-force expulsion, uncontrollable even if the Boy Who Lived had the thought to try. It felt different, though Harry wasn't present enough to properly register the change in its tone, the change in pressure. That it was far more painful than he remembered, his brain too numb to receive the information. As it screeched back into them, overflowing, pouring back out, they welcomed it.

When it finally ceased what felt like hours later; both Harry and Nagini were stumbling like newborn deer in the grass while those responsible for the wards exchanged wide-eyed glances. The Dark Lord snatched up his drunken familiar and Disapparated, followed soon after by Bellatrix; while Cassiopeia dragged Harry back to the Manor up the hill, Narcissa and Draco trailing behind.

Cassiopeia was looking at him as though he'd broken her heart. They were alone, in a bedroom at an Inn. He'd rented it for this. Warded it. Silenced it. Spent hours in it beforehand, pacing.

"Tom… This can't be what you choose. Don't tell me it's true…" she pleaded but stopped when she saw something in his eyes.

He looked at her for a long time.

"Don't. Call me that. Mudblood," he hissed, and her face turned to ice.

"Choose them, then! Call me unclean! ME!" The air cracked with her magic, and she sent it snapping at him. He deflected it; and so, she came at him.

Screaming, scratching at his eyes, magic sparking from her fingers as she crashed them both to the floor, "And when you've clawed your way to the top of the world, Tom." Slap. "Marvolo." Slap. "Riddle." Slap. "I hope you think of me. I hope you think about how I'll SPIT on your grave, you half-blood piece of fucking shit! I hate you! I fucking-" She started sobbing; shaking uncontrollably as he threw her off.

"You're not doing this. You're not. You're not a fucking Dark Lord Tom, you're all I've got. I'm all you've got. You're not this…" She watched him back out of the room, gasping. Harry's face was like a tombstone as he closed the door without another word.

Both Harry and the thing in his head were trying to talk with one mouth when they awoke, garbled non-words the result. Nagini was asleep in her human form at the end of the bed, curled tight in a ball. He watched her eyes snap open as he moved. She was sitting upright in an instant.

Harry's mind raced at the sight of her, at the memories of the last… How long?

Ginny… Ron. The Great Hall.

The prophecy.

Harry scrambled out of bed, hardly able to breathe as Nagini followed him, watched him.

Ginny had been with him. Sitting right next to him.

"How long has it been?" It asked in Parseltongue with Harry's voice.

"It is the second of July."

They both did the math. Seventeen days.

"What happened at the school?" Harry asked in English. She stepped away from him, moving for the door instead. She made a random motion with her hand that Harry took to mean that he should wait while she left him alone.

She returned with Cassiopeia, then Nagini left again. The vampire looked him over, took in that he was standing upright, that he wasn't screaming or flailing.

"How are we all holding up?" She asked, sitting in the white armchair the Maledictus sometimes occupied.

"There was a… Complete annihilation of both of our magical cores. Our minds nearly followed. So, really excellent," it said on behalf of them both.

Harry wondered dumbly where he got the robes he was wearing.

"And now?" She pressed.

"We… Repaired it. I cannot say how- well. How did you know… What to do? With the curse? The wards? How did you know when to do it?" It peppered her with questions while Harry tried to arrange his own.

"You were constantly screaming about it very loudly so," she shrugged, "We took a stab in the dark."

Neither one of them remembered doing that.

"The school," Harry repeated, "What happened at the school."

She tensed up, suddenly cagey, "Is… Who am I speaking with? I can't… Tell."

Harry himself had been barely able to comprehend that issue. That there was no line drawn in his head anymore. That it was no longer his, intruded on. But theirs. Shared.

"Both- both of us," it said, frowning, "When- while we repaired the cores, everything was… Mixed. It was not neat. I am still working through what exactly it means."

"The school," Harry hissed.

"I think he wants to know about Hogwarts, Cassiopeia," it warned, their words nearly overlapping.

Her eyes were wide as she took this in, they were darting side to side as she slowly stood up.

"Ahhh," she drew out the sound as she backed out of the room, "I need to… Go," she slammed the door behind her. Harry heard it lock.

Harry hissed and kicked it, but the thing in his head wouldn't let him blow the room up. Left alone for the first time since his arrival; conscious and unable to hide from it; the reality sank him to the floor.

(AN: The poem Nagini recites is The Rattlesnake by John Charles McNeill)