The Servant

Harry stiffened. 'I almost Levitated myself to the cave. The thought of leaving you to die was very tempting, but -'

'You considered Levitating yourself up?' asked Snape sharply.

'Well, yes - '

'Did it not occur to you that I might have had a reason for not doing the obvious?' he snapped. 'Levitation would have been fatal in this case! Why didn't you use the cutting?'

'The cutting?' said Harry cautiously. 'What was I supposed to have done with it?'

Snape's lip curled. 'Even Muggles have heard of this plant, Potter. I should have known that you would be as oblivious of basic Herbology as you are of everything else. This plant, Potter, is what Muggles call a magical beanstalk.'

'As in Jack and the Beanstalk? But I thought that was a fairy tale,' protested Harry.

'Ignorant as ever, Potter,' taunted Snape with a hint of malice.

'The Muggle story is, of course, romantised and full of inaccuracies. Nonetheless, there is a grain of truth in the tale. A cutting from the plant, if properly prepared, will grow upwards as high as is necessary to penetrate a magically-protected place,' he grunted.

'If you had Levitated yourself up into the cave, you would have died slowly, and in agony. The protections around this place are so strong that only this beanstalk would allow entry. The plant possesses magical properties that can, when augmented under moonlight with Asphodel, counter the strongest protective charms,' Snape informed him.

The boy's ignorance is astounding, thought Severus as he watched Harry's jaw drop.

'So Jack and the Beanstalk is real, but the beanstalk comes from a cutting, not a bean?' repeated Harry slowly.

'How many times do you want me to repeat that?' Snape said edgily. He waved his wand and cleared the mess on the ground. All traces of the accident disappeared. He then deigned to explain further. 'It is prepared with powdered Asphodel flowers, not root. These white flowers have their own protective properties. Muggle mythology has it that they grow in abundance in Hades, shielding us from unwanted visitors.'

Snape gathered the surviving vials of Protective Potion. He handed one to Harry and drank down the contents of another. He impatiently indicated for Harry to do the same. Swiftly stowing the other vials away, he carefully Levitated the cloth holding the prepared cutting. 'The entire apparatus should be buried a foot underground, directly below the entrance to the cave,' Snape lectured, as he did just that.

Harry watched in wonder as curling green tendrils snaked out of the earth silently, spiraling up towards the cave entrance. Snape sneered at his expression.

'Imitate,' he barked. He grasped the stem and stepped onto a twist in the plant. Rising gracefully as if on a magical staircase, he vanished into the cave.

Harry nudged the dark green tendril with his foot. It lay motionless, seeming to be quite tame. Taking a deep breath, he gripped the stem with both hands as he placed a foot onto a twist. The wind whistled past him as he rocketed upwards. Dizzy, he clutched at the stem even more tightly.

The plant grunted and threw him off violently. He landed unceremoniously in the mouth of the cave. A sneaking tendril pinched him painfully before the plant retreated. Shakily, he tried to get to his feet.

Perhaps digging his fingers in had been a bad idea.