Lavender slept quite badly that evening. She had spent all day in a whirl of activity, the better not to think too much about her vision and its implications, but now that she was forced to lie in a quiet dormitory, everything came crowding back. Snape, falling to the ground… the monstrous serpent with its long fangs… above all, Lavender thought of the red-eyed man whose name had echoed in her mind since Harry had said it in Defense Against the Dark Arts class that afternoon: Lord Voldemort.
When she finally fell asleep, her dreams were no more than ordinarily prophetic, but they were extremely unpleasant, and she was as brief as possible in writing them up the next day.
Classes passed in a haze of exhaustion. Lavender couldn't remember anything from Charms. In Transfiguration, Professor McGonagall made Lavender pass around a box of live mice; Lavender flinched from the squirming contents.
"Don't be silly, girl, they won't hurt you," Professor McGonagall said. Lavender approached the box again, forcing her hands steady. Mice made her think of things that ate mice, like snakes, and Lavender's fear of snakes was not improving at all.
At lunchtime, Lavender and Parvati went to see Professor Trelawney again. Lavender told Trelawney what Snape had done with Trelawney's note. "What do we do now?" she asked, not looking at Parvati.
"Do?" asked Professor Trelawney. "Why, nothing at all, dear. We have warned the Object of his danger; we may now go about our lives."
"But, Professor — I can't just let someone die like that!"
"It is unseemly for practitioners of the Eye to become involved in such sordid matters themselves! We are the ones on whom Fate smiles, the keepers of the hidden knowledge —"
"So you want me to leave Professor Snape bleeding on the floor?" Lavender asked, her voice rising.
"That is what you have Seen. Who are you to work against the dictates of Fate?"
Lavender struggled to speak; what could she say to that? Parvati, alarmed, leaped to change the subject. "Er, Professor, I had a question about my dream last night…"
Parvati's dream occupied the rest of the conversation to the end of lunchtime.
Seeing that it appeared she was the only person who was willing to do anything about Snape's mortal peril, Lavender resolved to get to work as soon as possible. During Care of Magical Creatures, she tried to ask Professor Grubbly-Plank more about neck wounds and identifying what sort of venom a snake had, but Professor Grubbly-Plank was being inspected by Professor Umbridge and evidently had her mind firmly on teaching the lesson. She told Lavender not unkindly that she was a Magical Creatures expert, not a Healer, and no one could identify hypothetical snakes with any accuracy from such vague descriptions as Lavender could give. Lavender knew that more questions would be fruitless.
There were still things she could do, though, and the most obvious was research for Snape's unusually timely venom antidote essay. Lavender ate dinner as fast as she could and dashed to the library. Once there, she buried herself deep in books about potions and magical creatures.
Lavender usually spent as little time doing research for Potions class as possible, as she found the ingredients and procedures generally disgusting, but in this case, necessity overrode disgust. She copied down everything she could find; it seemed that antidotes varied widely based on what sort of venom was at work. This was a problem, as Lavender had found several descriptions of snakes that sounded exactly like the one from the dream while having different kinds of venom.
While she was in the library, Lavender also looked up the recipe for a Blood-Replenishing Potion. It was so complex and so unpleasant that she hoped fervently that she would be able to find it ready-made instead of making it herself.
After a while, Parvati joined her. "Lavender, I'm sorry I hurt your feelings with what I said yesterday."
"That's all right," said Lavender automatically, then added in surprise, "You believe the dream after all, then?"
Parvati bit her lip. "Well, not exactly… but you seem so stressed, I believe you believe it. It must be really scary for you, seeing a big snake like that. I was thinking over third year some more and I remembered your boggart was a rattlesnake, and — well, if I can do anything to help, let me know."
Lavender flung her arms around Parvati. "Oh, thank you!"
The two of them worked late into the night. Lavender was learning more about snakes than she had ever wanted to know, but having learned so much about how to survive their bites made her feel a little better. If only the antidotes weren't often impossible to use in combination, her task would have been much easier…
Then, just as Madam Pince came up to say the library was closing, Parvati pushed a book over the table toward Lavender. She pointed at a paragraph halfway down the page.
Phoenix tears have powerful healing properties; they are effective against all types of snake venom, including that of the basilisk, King of the Serpents, as well as many of the venoms of the spiders and their kindred, such as the Acromantula. Nor are their powers limited to merely countering venoms. They seal wounds and heal all manner of internal injuries when externally applied to the afflicted body part, often reviving the sufferer from the very brink of death. Their great rarity, therefore, is much to be lamented.
As Lavender and Parvati left the library, Lavender felt suddenly light. All she had to do was track down a phoenix and get some tears to carry about with her — and, as for the rarity the book mentioned, wasn't there a rumor that Professor Dumbledore kept a phoenix on campus? Her inexperience with identifying snakes, brewing potions, and healing people wouldn't matter after all. When the time came, she could save Snape on her own, and everything would be all right.
Having hastily finished her essay with a long addition about phoenix tears and their effectiveness on snake venom, Lavender spent the rest of the week working on her long-neglected other homework and obtaining several anti-leak vials, which she enchanted with an Unbreakable Charm. These she planned to fill with phoenix tears and Blood-Replenishing Potion at the soonest availability. She sewed a special pocket into her robes, in order to carry them everywhere, and she practiced pouring out the contents of the proposed phoenix tears vial to make sure it held enough to cover the entire injury. Parvati watched her with some concern, but Lavender felt happier than she had for days.