Dance of Snakes

In 1998, on the fifteenth of March, Harry Potter dies, defeating Lord Voldemort.

                 ---

/In addition to its myriad uses in ordinary potion making and alchemy described above, the venom of a Naga may induce true dreams and visions if taken at a reduced dosage. However, as the necessary dose is often just short of the fatal measure, itself varying according to the individual fortitude of the user, the use of Naga venom for Divination work is highly dangerous and has been prohibited since 1834, owing to the incident at Whitehall wherein Mdme. A. A. (inkblot, inkblot)./

"Wake up. I said, *wake up*."

"Mm. Hrm? What?"

"You fell asleep. Get to bed."

"... I've another three inches to write on this essay. I'll sleep later."

"That the potions one? What'd you choose?"

"Naga venom."

"*Naga venom*? Isn't that a bit obvious?"

"It's perfectly legitimate. The uses in potion-making alone are-"

"I didn't ask for lecture. She only wanted a foot on the essay, y'know. What have you got there, sixteen?"

"Fifteen."

"Close enough. Come on. Your precious 'O' is safe, go to *bed*."

"I told you, I've three more inches to write. I've only just gotten to the non-potions uses."

"It *has* occurred to you that *might* not gain you extra credit in a class *about* potions, hasn't it?"

"I am not writing it for extra credit. I'm writing it for myself."

"Fine, be that way. See you tomorrow. Night."

"Goodnight, Rosier. And thank you."

                        ---

On January 1st, 1945, an hour after midnight, in an unremarkable lodge in the Swiss Alps, Albus Dumbledore had a quiet drink of brandy. He sat back in a chair that was too large for him, carefully placed his wand on the table beside the chair, poured himself a shot of amber liquid, and stretched out his feet to rest on the severed head of one of Grindelwald's trolls. Grindelwald's head, and indeed, Grindelwald's body, was nowhere to be found, as the Dark wizard was consumed entirely by the magical backlash when their counter-spells collided.

Albus had seen a lot of blood, and even a lot of severed heads: this was not why he was drinking. Across the miles and mountains, he heard clock on Big Ben strike twelve, and as the year turned in London, he knew it was starting again.

                     ---

Through the dark, a woman dances, with rings on her fingers and bells on her toes. All of her is dark: glistening skin, thickly coiled hair, and deep, wide eyes visible even when her back is turned. Cloth-of-gold shimmers against the darkness of her, as her hips swing and arms shake. Hair streams before and behind and around her through the dancing, and even it is jeweled and gilded and hung with bells. She dances in a spiral, in a circle, and her arms flow like water until it seems there are ten of them, a thousand of them. With each step, the bells she wears ring; with each note, the broken stones beneath her begin to sing, as she twirls through the bones of this dead city, and brings it back to life as the City of the Dead. The stones and and bones and crumbled masonry all dance up into the air with her, as she spins and sways and her feet trace the ancient signs into the dust.

Round and round, deeper and deeper, closer and closer to the heart of the city, the epicenter.

Here, surrounded by a labyrinth of an amphitheater, bound round in a perfect circle is a fountain. It is deep, and dark, and the water pouring out of the mouth of a snake slithering out of the mouth of a skull, he knows without touching it, is very cold. He hears the pounding of the water, feels the moisture of the air, and realizes that there is a he to hear and feel and see these things.

A woman is bathing, no, *playing* in the fountain. Her skin is white like ivory and cold like marble, but there is blue beneath it. Hair so black as to be almost blue falls and ripples over slender shoulders, and her lips are not red but blue. From the waist up, she is naked, and from the waist down, she is a serpent, with scales of black and indigo and green and blue, that gleam like jewels with moisture. Six feathery wings in three airy pairs sprout from her back.

The coils of her tail beat the water, churning up its depths, and he realizes that the cool spray across his knees and legs is not from the pounding of the fountain.

His gaze rests a moment on the curves of her breasts, but when she speaks, it is the flesh just below her hip-bones he must pull his eyes away from, where the skin and scales melt together.

"Who are you?"

Her eyes meet his, and the irises are indigo and the pupils human, but he cannot read them.

"I am Throat-Cutter."

She smiles, and presses her lips to his. The kiss tastes of salt and seaweed, iron and cold things, and when she pulls back his mouth is oddly full. He frowns, and spits a silver egg into the palm of his hand.

"Thank you."

A hand pats his cheek, and he remembers his mother. He wraps his fingers around a wrist that feels much thicker than it looks and studies her.

"You are beautiful. I gave you my name. Will you tell me yours?"

She laughs like silver bells. The egg cracks with the ringing, and cracks, and cracks again, and a

tiny snake with tiny wings hatches from it. It slithers up his arm and hides in his hair.

"I have given you Knowledge. Is that not enough?"

He wants to say no, but frowns, and asks uncertainly, "What else is there?"

Again she laughs, and this time the bells are gold and hurt his ears. "Wisdom." Her fingers pluck her laughter from where it hangs in the air, and draws it into three gold glyphs that ring along with her tongue as she speaks. He does not recognize the runes she writes, and can only half make out the first syllable of her name, which begins with M. He reaches for the three golden letters, but they stretch out farther than his arm can reach and fade from the air.

"Are you a Goddess?"

This time, he cannot hear her laughter, and it is every color and no color at all. Her mouth open, lips parted to reveal sharp teeth, she strikes for his arm, quick and deadly. Sharp fangs stab into his forearm, working into his flesh. The wound throbs as wave after wave of venom surges into his veins, seeping into him, flooding him, making his heart beat so fast it feels about to burst. With every beat of his heart, she drives her fangs deeper, as his heart pumps the venom farther, further into him; mixing with and then changing his blood, breeding strange new humors that begin to grow, to push against the bounds of his skin.

He wants to push her away and pull her in deeper at the same time, and indecision locks his spine and holds him in place. Indigo-black hair brushes against his thighs, and he bites down hard enough that blood spurts from his tongue.

Eventually, her grip on his arm softens, and she folds the fangs neatly into her mouth and straightens up. She looks at him sadly but not unkindly before turning away.

"You are going to fail your Care of Magical Creatures N.E.W.T.," she calls over her shoulder and her wings, before diving beneath the water, fins and feathers kicking up a wake of their own.

                     ---

In 1945, some four months after attending to some trifling family matters, Tom Marvolo Riddle steps off the platform onto a train bound for Romania, on a journey he hopes will not have an end.

                     ---

Like the Phoenix, the snake (or Serpent) is also a symbol of death and rebirth, as it sheds one skin for another. The original Greek symbol for eternity was the /Ourborous/, a snake shown swallowing its tail in an endless loop, and the god Vishnu is often depicted as sleeping on the serpent of eternity, called Ananta. In countless cultures, serpents were also bearers of knowledge and wisdom, such as the twin stakes of the Caduceus, the wand of Hermes, patron of magicians, messengers, and the magical arts.

                     ---

In Anno Domini 720, the Christian army of Pelayo defeats the Muslims at Covadonga, setting the stage for the reclamation of Iberia from the Muslims. It will take some seven hundred more years, but it is the first tiny crack in the foundations of the culture of Moorish Spain. The family of al-Salazar, who have been viziers to sultans and wizards to kings, and priests and holy men before that, and who have always had long eyes for history, make their way to the fens of England. This is not the first time they have relocated, nor the first that they have adapted to a new culture. When the armies of Muhammed claimed the Black Stone for the Hebrew God of the deserts, they wept in secret for al'Lat, al'Uzza, and Manat Shaybah, then wiped their faces with their beards and sent out for Iberia.

It will be over a hundred years before the man who will be known as Salazar Slytherin (from 'Slithering Salazar') comes to found Hogwarts, but he will grow up hearing the tale of the 'savage asses' of Convadonga, and Seeing it through the eyes of his father, and his father's father, and it will leave its mark.

                     ---

He gets an 'E' in Care of Magical Creatures, exceeding even his expectations. Along with another E in Charms, it is his only N.E.W.T. grade below O. Salome Wilkes trumps him by getting straight O's. Together with Rosier, who got all E's but has the excuse of being both a prefect and a chaser, they get drunk on the weak but tasty faux-absinthe he usually sells at exorbitant prices to idiot hangers-on like Regulus Black.

Two months after graduating, they are initiated into the Death Eaters together.

                    ---

In the summer of 1995, two men who do not like each other sit side by side on an old iron bench. The bench is in an small, fenced-in plot of graves in the churchyard of a crumbling chapel. The headstone they are both staring at gives a name, the dates 1961-1980, and the words, "He came to us, greeted us, and then left."

"So, who was it?"

"What do you mean?"

"Who'd they order him to kill? Why'd he balk?"

"Ah. Andromeda and Ted Tonks, and their daughter."

The man on the left snarls, gets up, and paces back and forth in front of the grave. "So why didn't you /do/ anything? Hadn't you gone over by then?"

"By the time I found out, it was too late to /do/ anything, aside from blow my cover and probably endanger a great many more lives."

"Damnit, you were supposed to be his /friend/!"

"And you were supposed to be his brother," says the second man, who gets up and gives an ironic bow to the headstone. "Let us not demean his memory by pretending either of us did a better job at it than we did."

                     ---

Ginny clings to Hermione's hand, and Hermione clings to Luna's, and together they walk step by step out of the deep and dark and dank place they hope will lead somewhere. They walk over stone and bone and other things Hermione does not want to think about, and she flinches every time she hears the scurrying of rats, or something brushes against her thigh. She knows her pupils must be dilated and enormous, but all she can make out is Luna's pale hair just in front of, that gleams as if in moonlight, and she is too tired and too scared to be anything but grateful for the logical impossibility.

After a while, their trail gets steep, and then sharp, and they have to let go of each other to climb up. Hermione doesn't want to let go, but she does, and even when her hands ache and her fingers bleed and the feel of the stone is ground forever into her palms, she looks for the gleam of Luna's hair, and keeps climbing.

Eventually, it levels off, and one by one they pull each other up over the lip of whatever they've been climbing. There's light off in the distance, but instead of rushing toward it they walk on grimly, hand in hand.

By the time they reach the entrance, Hermione can almost believe they're free.

She blinks in the moonlight, which burns like the sun, and takes great big lungfuls of air.Ginny twists and stretches her way through the standard Quidditch warm-up, then makes grimly determined passes with the bladeless hilt of the sword.

It's twilight, wherever they are. The sky is a great big band running black to indigo to blue to periwinkle, occasionally broken by spindly, half-stripped trees. A few wildflowers and weeds peak out of the rocky, sandy earth.

When she's done with her exercises, Ginny flips the ruined sword over in her hand, and scowls off into the horizon. "What do we do now? Hunt the rat down?"

Luna looks up from the flowers she's picking and points down the path leading out of the cave. Off in the distance, they can see him picking his way slowly over the rocks. This far away, he looks absolutely tiny, and the sight is so mundane Hermione has to remind herself sternly to be terrified.

"We should go meet him. There's no use staying here."

"What?!" Hermione's shriek is so shrill it hurts even her own ears, but Ginny's already making her way down the trail, the shattered remains of her weapon in hand. She doesn't think there is any force on earth that could make her follow, but Luna plucks a final plant from the ground and starts walking, and as she has for the past three days, she follows Luna's hair. He's far enough away that there's actually time to talk.

"But Luna, we don't have /wands/, we should /hide/, this is /mad/--"

"I know we don't have wands," the other girl explains patiently. "That's why we're /going/."

"But we need a plan, or something, or..."

"It'll be all right, Hermione." Luna holds up the long stem of the silvery-green plant. It's spiky head bobs with the motion. "Look. Hiberian Witch Thistle."

"Hiberian Witch Thistle DOESN'T EXIST!," Hermione howls, but at this point they've come up just behind Ginny, who has come up just before Pettigrew, who is eyeing the remains of the sword a little warily and reaching for his wand.

"Of /course/ it exists," says Luna with extreme patience, and she calmly points the thistle at Pettigrew and pronounces "Expelliarmus!"

Man /and/ wand go flying then tumbling backwards a good fifty feet, bumping over the rocks and dirt. He lands sprawled on his back. Once again, Ginny leads the charge forward.

They swoop down on him as one. Miraculously, the wand's in one piece, and he reaches for it /again/, only to have it and his hand crushed under Ginny's foot.

"No, Ginny, /no/, we /need/ that, we don't have /wands/, we--"

She half expects Luna to answer again, but Ginny does, while grabbing the babbling and pleading Pettigrew by the hair, hauling him to his knees. "No, we /don't/. That wand killed my family, Hermione. We are /not/ using /that/."

Luna nods in approval, and holds the Hiberian Witch Thistle pointed at their prisoner's head.

"P-Please, p-please d-don't kill me, I w-was only d-doing as I was ordered, y-you've seen him, he's--"

Out of sheer frustration, Hermione kicks him viciously in the knee. "Oh, shut UP!"

Luna sighs, like she's ashamed of this display of violence. "We aren't going to kill you, Mister Pettigrew."

Ginny half turns and almost growls, "We're /not/?" Hermione is delighted that someone appears to have come to her senses.

"No. We need him to get to H-- the Dark Lord." She waves the witch thistle in the general vicinity of Pettigrew's hand. "Cut that off."

An epic struggle plays out on Ginny's face while Pettigrew howls and pleads and babbles, but in the end she grabs his forearm, and through a mixture of hacking and sawing manages to cut the hand free of his flesh.

Hermione sticks her fingers in her ears and squeezes her eyes shut and /wills/ herself not to hear. She's jolted out of it by a hand on her arm, and she nearly screams.

"I need you to pull out one of my hairs." Luna pats her arm absently.

"What?"

"A long one, please."

She complies, but only because it means she doesn't have to look at Pettigrew, or worse, Ginny. As her fingers comb through Luna's hair, she's surprised by how /thick/ it is. With a color so pale, she'd expected it to be thin, but it isn't; and the strand she plucks out is longer than her forearm.

When she's done, Luna turns to the Hand in Ginny's hand, and points the thistle at it. "Hrm. I wonder how I'm going to do this..."

Luna starts muttering, and the Hand floats up into the air. It's Old Atlantlan, Hermione thinks at first, but then Luna hisses something with too many sibilants in it, and the silver of the hand starts to waver and gleam. It slowly melts in the air, like it's being smelted down. The surface ripples, as bits of gristle and muscle and fat fall away from the roiling metal. It curves inward on itself, smoothing and becoming a perfect sphere; then splitting, like two embryonic moons.

The first silver orb glides over towards Ginny, where it hovers patiently in front of her left hand, holding what is left of the sword. Luna's chant because louder, more powerful, commanding; like the battle-cries of an ancient warrior-woman. In a swift and sure movement, Ginny raises the hilt and extends it to the sphere. It trembles again, silver flowing once more to embrace the last few inches of bare blade, then shivers and lengths, extending itself until it is as long as it was, a strong and shining blade that sings as Ginny makes a triumphant slash across the air.

Then Luna turns to Hermione, and smiles, and it takes all of her will not to back away from the floating globe that flits unerringly towards the long strand of hair in her hand. This close, she feels that it is not molten, but frozen - more than frozen, and the chill makes her blood run thick and her bones ache. She wants to look away from this, look away from Luna, but she can't. Slowly, slowly, with a voice like water and churchbells, Luna's song braids the silver around Luna's hair, into delicate filigree. It is almost a foot long, and it, too, sings when Hermione raises it, still not believing, and points it at Peter Pettigrew's heart.

"But Luna," she says, feeling the power flow from her hand to the wand, like it's an extension of her body, a conduit as natural as her veins, "a wand's core is supposed to be made of parts from a magical creature..."

Luna shakes her head, and sighs, and speaks as if Hermione is a particularly dense five year old. "Hermione, we /are/ magical creatures."

                     ---

In 1996, Remus Lupin finally deals with the problem of the portrait.

"Filfth! Wretched creature! Begone from this place!"

"Good morning, Madame Black."

"He is dead, dead, dead! Go, leave, begone, you have no right to befoul this place!"

"Actually, Madame Black, your son's will was quite specific. I'm afraid we do."

"Filth! Blood traitor! Wretch!"

"And sodomite as well, Madame Black."

Silence.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you knew. Well... I suppose you have me to thank you that you haven't any 'impure' grandchildren, hm?"

"ABOMINATION!"

"Yes, Madame Black, we've gone over that. I brought Muggleborn children into your house, shagged your son in your bed, burned your furniture, and - oh, yes. Brought Muggle artifacts in as well."

A blood-curdling shriek, incoherent with rage.

"Do you know what this is, Madame Black? Oh, come now. I thought all you highborn types were fond of hunting? Well, not with /these/, I suppose. And it /is/ sawed off, after all. Twelve gauge. ... don't appreciate the irony, Madame Black?"

"BEGONE FROM MY HOUSE!!!!!"

"Sorry, /no/, Madame Black."

*Bang.*

Silence.

                        ---

He was not born in the village of Snape, in Suffolk, although his father's family had a long history there. The place where he was born does not exist on any Muggle map. Fenchurch was so named because before a village, it was a fen with a church in the middle.

It was also the ancestral stronghold of the Malfoy family.

The Malfoys had been very good to him, and to his mother, and even - though the man surely did not deserve it - to his father.

His mother had come here, during the war, as a very young girl. Her family was from London, fine old wizarding stock. Of course, his father's family line was even finer.

She always maintained that her early years in Fenchurch had been the best of her life; even after she received her letter and went off to Hogwarts.

His father had not received a letter. This was the first mystery, the first inexplicable thing that he poked and prodded in the back of his mind, once he was old enough to understand the looks his father gave him and his mother.

Over the years, he spent such a long time trying to explain it, that he never quite wondered if perhaps /it/ explained /him/.

                        ---

"You don't have to, you know."

"Yes, I /do/. If I don't, then..."

"Then what? What, the world will end?"

"YES!"

"No, it won't. It's a world. Worlds don't end. At least, not the way you're thinking of."

"Look, what do /you/ know?"

"Nothing much. But, well, that's the point, isn't it?"

"What? ... that makes no sense."

"Oh -- never mind. Look. How do you know magic is real?"

"What? ... I've /seen/ it. It's real."

"Right, then. What's real?"

"What? Oh, come off it, this is stupid."

"I'm serious. Look - are you saying that anything you see is real?"

"No, of course not."

"Oh? What, then?"

"Look, I've /done/ it."

"Right. Even better. So, everything you do is magic?"

"Errr... look, magic is magic."

"Uh-/huh/. God, kid, and I thought /I/ was a poor choice for this sort of thing."

"/Hey/."

"Ahem. Sorry. Anyway, want to go for three out of three?"

"Fuck you. All right. All right, magic is, is -- anything a Muggle says isn't possible!"

"Oh, /brilliant/. Just brilliant. Now I know how /he/ feels... well, at least you haven't brought up wands. All right. So, if a Muggle says something /is/ possible, does that make it not magic?"

"Errr. Um. ... this is giving me a headache."

"Good. Means you're thinking."

"You're a bastard, you know."

"Thanks. Learned from the best."

"You know, you look... kind of familiar."

"Took you /that/ long? Hah. Granted, last time we crossed paths I had a skateboard, and-- anyway. Look. I'll spare you the brain-splitting lectures and tell you that magic's a journey, all right?"

"A journey?"

"Right. But, see, with journeys, it's not always what you're going towards, sometimes it's what you're leaving behind."

                        ---

She steps towards the wounded and bleeding Welsh Green that was - or is, or will be - Malfoy. It snaps at her, almost reluctantly, Neville's spear still sticking out of one ruined and oozing eye. The other eye, grey and human, looks directly at her for a moment, and closes.

Everything flashes hot and red for a moment, and she /feels/ Hermione's wards around her buckle, only a second before the spell hits her, knocking her backwards, and--

Stops, mostly, and she opens her eyes to see one great green wing interposed between her and the source of the spell.

She drags herself up on the dragon's snout, gives it something like a pat, and steps around it's bulk, into plain view of--

Harry. His scar is furious and his eyes are burning red and there is death and power all around him, but somehow, it's still just Harry. Maybe this is how Ron died, maybe this is why Dumbledore failed - he's just Harry.

"Give it up, Ginny."

/Give it up/. That's what she'd told herself after third year; just give it up. It wasn't going to happen, and, besides, she couldn't honestly say she loved him, could she?

He throws another curse; crimson doom streaks for her heart, but she slices the sword down in a vicious arc and cuts it in two. The light and heat rush around her body, leaving her intact to growl her defiance.

"Never. /Never, never, never/. I will /never/ give up."

And she charges him, blindly, because all she can see is that for a moment, his eyes are green.

The sword hits his chest point first, and even with all her weight behind it, twisting and turning to slide between his ribs, it's /hard/. He screams and screams and screams, and she screams too, as the sword sinks through skin and muscle and bone. In the end, they're inches apart, face to face, close enough to embrace. He coughs pitifully, and the sword slides in another two inches, all the way to the hilt. Blood runs down her hands, drips off the rubies in the hilt of Godric Gryffindor's sword. Ginny falls forward with it, sobbing, and at sixteen she finally kisses Harry Potter, as he tells her he's sorry and dies in her arms.

                     ---

The first law of magic: there is power in names.

     ---

You take two steps forward, and one step back...

                     ---

In 1998, seven years behind schedule, Mark Evans turns eleven. He goes to Stonewall, and leaves his mark.