Chapter Fifty Eight
"I… I don't…" Neville said, ripping off the bottom of his robes quickly and trying to hold it to the injuries as the blood seeped far too quickly through the white fabric.
Severus awkwardly, like it was taking him every ounce of energy he had left, raised his wand to his forehead, drawing out a long silvery memory, "Take… take it." he mumbled, "P… please take it."
Neville waved his wand with his right hand, his left still trying to stop the flow of blood, creating a vial to hold the memory as it spilled from not only Severus's head but now also his eyes, nose and mouth, drops of silver mixing with the bright red blood like some sick painting.
"He's losing too much blood." Neville said, tears choking him as he said the words, his mind screaming all the things they should of done to help sooner at him, "I don't… how did they stop it? For Mr Weasley?"
"Potions we don't have." Pansy said quickly, darting around behind Neville, conjuring a fire and finding a long, blunt piece of metal from one of the old beds, "And it took them weeks… Neville when I say move, jump out the way, and take the cloth with you."
"What?" Neville asked, trying to turn around to see what Pansy was doing, moving about behind him with the occasional loud crash but he couldn't turn around that far without stopping the pressure on Severus's wounds. The pressure that was the only thing that was keeping him from bleeding out in a second, "Pansy the cloth is trying to keep the blood on the inside, where it belongs-"
"Just trust me." Pansy pleaded desperately, "This is the only chance we have! Your robe isn't going to keep him alive for very long, he's still losing too much blood. I'm sorry Professor, this isn't going to be nice."
"Pansy what are you… Professor?" Neville said, watching Severus's eyes flicker closed, his head slumping slight backwards, "Please stay awake, fight it please… whatever it is you're going to do Pansy, you have to do it quickly!"
Pansy took several deep breaths and removed the metal bar from the fire she'd created, hanging in the air just by her side. The tip of the metal was red hot, the heat was so strong it was getting uncomfortable on her own hand, she just hoped this worked.
"Move." Pansy said loudly.
Neville jumped out the way as Pansy forced the burning metal onto Severus's flesh, creating a horrible, choking smell of burning meat, turning the air around them into a kitchen.
Severus, although unconscious, let out a moan of pain as he sizzled loudly.
Pansy pulled away the bar, moving it to the next area swapping it for another when the metal cooled too much, again and again until she was sure the smell of Professor Snape burning would never wash out of her hair and pores.
Finally she allowed herself to stop, chucking the metal bar with a chunk of skin stuck to it away from them.
Neville moved slowly over towards Severus, wiping the mud from his hands on his blood soaked remains of robes and feeling slightly dizzy for a moment. He carefully looked over Severus's wounds that were now violent red and black, but no longer pouring with blood.
"The bleeding's stopped." Neville said, trying to recover from the shock of what he'd just seen, Pansy burning Severus would haunt his dreams, "Why? Why did it stop?"
Pansy laughed, crying at the same time, mostly out of exhaustion and relief as well as Neville's tendency to want to know how things work, especially when something shocked him.
"It's a very, very old muggle way of stopping bleeding, only to be used in the most serious of situations as burns lead to infection and they couldn't fight infections very easily. But we can fight infections easily and this really was the most serious of situations." She said, wiping the tears from her face and trying to pull herself together, things weren't over yet, far from it, "I read it in one of those books Lily gave me."
"Yeah… just a bit, to the most serious of situations but… you know what I mean." Neville agreed, watching Severus's unconscious chest rise and fall steadily, "It's a good job you read all those books."
"It's something about the heat that forces the blood to clot, stopping the bleeding." Pansy said, ripping the bottom of Severus's robes into strips before carefully wrapping them around the fresh, raw burns, "We need to get him to the hospital wing. He's still in a lot of danger. He needs blood replenishing potions and proper dressings and balms to speed up the healing…"
Neville nodded, the shock slowly wearing off his mind. He carefully levitated Severus from the ground, brushing off some of the dirt that clung to the sleeping man's now tattered robes. Pansy led the way back towards the castle, wand at the ready as they made there way through the battle that was fiercely raging throughout the school.
They gave Severus to the first free witch they found with a red cross on her arm, explaining what had happened. She was French, one of the Angel's Calling and couldn't be more than sixteen.
She flicked her pale red hair over her shoulder and took the levitating man straight to the hospital wing.
Pansy and Neville watched him go and gave themselves a few breaths to calm themselves before running back to join the fighting.
Gemini felt like her head was going to explode. Bright lights flashed before her eyes, causing her to crash sideways into the castle wall.
"What's up with you?" Rodolphus asked, frowning at his sister.
Gemini didn't answer, she couldn't answer. She felt her mind rewriting her memories as a spell shattered in her brain.
She was walking up a set of stone steps, that was real. Memories fought for dominance in her mind for a moment before everything became clear.
"Look if you're having a fit I'm not looking for Snape on my own." Rodolphus said plainly, picking at a speck of dirt under his nails.
Snape.
He'd pretended to kill Dumbledore. Gemini could remember now, remember walking those stone steps, but she hadn't stopped and watched Snape curse Dumbledore, causing him to fly out the window, crashing to his death.
She'd pushed him. She could remember the feel of his heartbeat on her fingertips as she forced her arms to extend against his chest. The noise as he fell, as she watched him fall.
She, Gemini Lestrange, had killed Dumbledore. Not some traitorous half-blood, but her. He'd just stolen her credit.
She felt a smile playing on her lips, trying to hide the excitement at the memory coming back to her from her brother.
Why now though? Why was it now that the memory had corrected itself?
Snape dying would be the simplest explanation but something at the back of Gemini's mind said that wasn't true, or at least she hoped it wasn't. No, for some reason Snape had released the memory, possibly not realising it would change it in Gemini's mind as well.
It didn't matter now though, she didn't care.
"Are you smiling?" Rodolphus snapped, still watching his sister slumped against the wall.
The thought never crossed his mind to help her, or go and get someone who could help her. He was bored, not something he thought was possible as he was also terrified. They'd been given a baby job, he knew that and yet some how Gemini's eyes had lit up when they were asked to go and find Snape.
She viewed everything Voldemort asked her as a great honour, even when it was mostly just to keep them out of the way of any danger or real action.
"No… no I'm not smiling." Gemini said, composing her face.
"Well are you alright or what?" Rodolphus snapped.
Gemini dragged herself to her feet, clutching at the rough stone until the dizzy spell passed.
"I'm fine. I think I must have just caught the edge of a curse getting round here." Gemini said, waving her hand dismissively, "I'm fine now though."
They were at the back of the castle, where the fighting hadn't yet reached, thinking it would be quicker to avoid all that in their search for Snape.
"So are we still doing this?" Rodolphus asked, hoping her answer would be no. That they could slip back to the safety of the Death Eater camp in the forest.
Gemini narrowed her eyes at him, her hatred for her brother's laziness growing even more, "Of course we're doing this! We're not going to be viewed as children forever!" she snapped.
Rodolphus shrugged, "We're sixteen."
"Which is adult! Not a child!" Gemini shouted, her voice filled with exasperation, "Are you seriously happy always being viewed as some silly child?"
Rodolphus glared at her, "Yes! It's not bad from where I'm sitting!"
Gemini took several deep breaths, they didn't have time for another pointless argument, Rodolphus would never learn anyway so what was the point?
"Whatever." She said calmly, "We should get on. Hurry up."
Rodolphus rolled his eyes and followed her into the castle.
Half an hour later, Gemini and Rodolphus stomped their way through the emptier corridors towards the Headmasters' study.
"What are we doing this for again?" Rodolphus moaned and whined to his sister.
"Because Mater and Sir told us to. Because the Dark Lord himself wants Snape found and if we are the ones who find him… we will be greatly rewarded." Gemini hissed, slamming a door to an empty classroom closed.
"How do we know he hasn't already been found? We've been at this for ages" Rodolphus said snidely, annoyed at the loving tone his sister used when talking about Voldemort, "What will you do then to gain His attention?"
Gemini glared at him, anger burning in her eyes, "Either help me or shut up."
Rodolphus smirked, pleased that he'd gotten beneath her sister's skin.
"We should check in the study… it makes sense that he would be hiding away in there." Gemini said, chewing another painful strip of skin from the inside of her cheek.
They moved quickly through the corridors to the large stone gargoyle the guarded the headteachers' study.
"I don't suppose you have the password?" Rodolphus huffed.
"Of course not!" Gemini snapped.
"Well then this was a waste of time." Rodolphus snapped back, speaking to her like she was an idiot, "We should have been trying to find Potter anyway, or follow the red-haired mudblood around, Snape will be with one of them."
Gemini shook her head, "Bombarda maxima!"
The floor shook at the stone gargoyle crashed around them, looking very sorry for itself as its beak shattered on the floor.
"Overkill much?" Rodolphus hissed, looking around in case anyone had heard them.
Gemini gave him a cruel smile, her pathetic brother hadn't seen overkill yet. They marched up the stairs, they weren't moving themselves for once.
"You really need to learn to control your temper more." Rodolphus said, as condescendingly as he possibly could, "It's not a very lady like quality."
"And why would I care about that?" Gemini snapped, kicking the locked door before blowing it off its hinges.
"Well you'll struggle to find a husband." Rodolphus shrugged, "And you'll be nothing without one."
"Excuse me?" Gemini said, stopping suddenly, causing Rodolphus to bump into her.
"You're not the oldest and you're a girl…" Rodolphus sneered, "Look I'm not trying to be nasty but we all know that you have no future without a husband to give you a good name. In the grand scheme of things you're worth less than Corvus."
Gemini felt her temper flare, every inch of her filling with boiling hot anger. She said nothing, watching her brother walk aimlessly around the room.
He was the useless one, he never did anything of any worth. He relied on her for every idea, every instruction for every action he ever took. Well, any action that didn't involve chasing after some pathetic girl.
Rodolphus pushed some books off the desk and picked up some random papers, throwing them out the window and watching them as they fluttered to the ground below.
"He's not here." Rodolphus huffed.
Gemini snorted a laugh, "I can see that." if she hadn't been so angry she'd of been impressed with how calm she was acting but at the present time she couldn't think of anything but the anger that was burning her up from the inside.
"So what do we do now in your brilliant plan?" Rodolphus asked.
"Where would you look for him?" Gemini asked, walking slowly towards her brother.
Rodolphus shrugged, "I don't know."
"You never seem to know do you?" Gemini muttered under her breath.
"What?" Rodolphus snapped, narrowing his eyes at it sister.
Gemini smiled, "Oh, nothing."
"So… what are we going to do now?" Rodolphus asked, tucking his wand away in his robe pocket.
Gemini was standing right next to him now, looking out the large open window.
"Well I'm not sure." She shrugged, "But I know this worked last time."
Gemini could feel Rodolphus's heartbeat under her fingertips for a second or two, as his face darkened with shock and surprise as he realised what was happening.
Slowly, too slowly to save himself, his hand reached for his wand. Gemini knew he'd be dead before he could reach it, that's why she waited until he'd put it away.
Gemini leaned out the window as her twin fell into the darkness below, hearing the sickening thud and crunch that told her he was dead.
She pulled herself back into the room, feeling nothing but twisted exhilaration.
Rodolphus was dead, she was finally the eldest and soon, if she played her cards right, she would be an only child.