Spider's Blood

Chapter Thirteen

Zora resumed her position on the floor, spreading her robes down so that it appeared she had been lying for hours as when Harry first entered. No sooner than she had spread her arms out did the painting door opened. Harry watched as several people flooded into the room and began walking down the stairs.

First to enter was Snape, his oily hair framing a look of annoyance. McGonagall, who wore a similar expression, and Dumbledore who appeared to be smiling both followed Snape. Final to step onto the staircase was of all people, Cornelius Fudge, the Minister of Magic.

"Zora?" Snape called to her apparently sleeping body.

"Yes?" she said with a distasteful curl of her lip, pretending to sound annoyed by the interruption.

"This is Cornelius Fudge," Snape began despite her rudeness. "He's been quite...anxious to meet you and have a word with you."

"But I swear I could just feel my legs rising!" she whined with deep agitation.

"Is she levitating herself?" Fudge asked the surrounding professors. Harry couldn't help but notice he seemed nervous and even a little fearful.

"Attempting," Snape corrected him.

"She wasn't built for levitation, but she likes to give it a try every so often, it's supposed to be relaxing," McGonagall added, easing the Minister's nervousness.

Zora opened her eyes and looked at the four. She let out a sigh covered in annoyance and rose slowly to her feet.

"Yes, well then," Fudge began. "Zora, it's very nice to meet you," the minister said as he stretched out his hand.

"Same here," she said as she shook it, eyeing the Minister questionably. They shook only once before Fudge let her hand drop.

"Yes, Zora, I was wondering if you'd mind answering a few questions for me."

"I don't mind," Zora said as she peered at the three professors, searching for some sign of help in the matter. All three remained blank.

"All right then...we'll just be going then," Fudge said as he took Zora's arm.

"Wait just a moment!" Snape intervened. "You can ask your questions here."

"I would prefer a more...secure room with her and somewhere that won't be difficult to restrain her if necessary."

"If you dare to take that child from this room...that spot to be more precise... I can guarantee you will require some assistance when leaving," McGonagall intervened, holding her wand in front of Fudge's face.

Harry was shocked at this statement coming from of all people, McGonagall. It seemed Zora was thinking a similar thought as she peered at the professor's wand with surprise.

"How dare you speak to me that way?" Fudge said after a few mumbles and struggles over a few words.

"Cornelius," Dumbledore began. "Zora is a student of Hogwarts...a gifted student, but a student none the less. She is one that is especially close us and I must apologize for Minerva's statements, but I can also guarantee their truths. Zora may be especially advanced in some forms, but she is neither a danger nor a weapon of any kind. You will find she is a normal teenage girl...with obvious sarcasm and rudeness included."

Zora blushed slightly at Dumbledore's final remark and cast her eyes to the stone floor at her feet. It was then that Fudge finally let Zora's arm droop at her side. Zora eyes him a moment as she tenderly rubbed at her arm and stepped away from him and went to stand closer to the professors.

"Well, then...I'll need to ask her the questions then."

"I assure you," Snape began as his lip curled, "whatever you have to say can...and will...be said in front of all of us."

It appeared that Fudge was reaching the end of his patience. "Fine," he said harshly as he turned his eyes to Zora.

"May I ask your whereabouts on Halloween night?" he said quickly.

"Ah," Zora began with deep thought, "I went to the banquet and then I went to the Slytherin common room."

"What time did you leave the banquet?" Fudge continued his questioning tone as he rubbed his chin.

"I left early...around five or six I think," she said conclusively with a nod of her head.

"Yes...and where did you go?" Fudge asked with what appeared to be deep thought.

Zora looked at the three professors and then repeated, "Then I went to the Slytherin common room."

"Immediately after you left the banquet?"

"...Yes..."

"And can anyone say you were here?"

At this question, Zora looked a little frazzled and she eyed the three professors around her.

"Yes," she said finally. "My tutor was helping me with my Transfiguration homework."

"And who might your tutor be?"

"Draco Malfoy," she sighed.

Snape peered at her harshly and McGonagall seemed as if she were going to inquire further.

"And your relationship with young Mr. Malfoy?"

"He's my tutor is all...he gets top grades in Transfig, I thought he'd be the best person to ask...seeing as I was held back six years...thanks so some people," she added with a bitter look at Fudge.

Fudge took the blow and continued on in his questioning.

"And if Mr. Malfoy had asked you to do something for him...steal something...or curse someone...what would you tell him?"

"I'd tell him to do it himself, of course," Zora replied.

"If you are suggesting that Zora and Draco stole the blood then you are wasting your time. No student committed that crime, we have had it researched. And besides...it is nothing of the Ministry's concern I assure you," McGonagall intervened with a strong voice.

"That is where you're wrong, Minerva...and you should know why. Spider's blood in the wrong hands is lethal and deadly and quite valuable. And I think you know whose hands I'm talking about."

"If your implying that Zora is helping the Dark Lord...then you are sadly mistaken," Snape commented. "She wants nothing more to do with him than Minerva or Dumbledore or I."

"Of course...but if I find any evidence pointing this way, I will be back...and I will have a Dementor or two with me when I do."

At this Fudge stalked up the stone stairs and through the painting door.

"So...you were with the Malfoy boy?" McGonagall asked almost as soon as the painting door closed.

"He really is only a tutor. We don't talk about anything else...and haven't I improved in Transfiguration? Haven't I? Well then I guess it worked..." Zora added, trying to help her case.

"Very well then," Dumbledore interrupted. "I think it's about time we leave Ms. Birk back to her...Levitation?" he said with a smile and began to walk back to the staircase.

Harry watched form his spot as the three left, leaving Zora in the silent room. Harry came from his spot on the wall and stood next to Zora.

"So," he said and Zora jumped in surprise and began to laugh.

"I forgot you were in here," she laughed as she placed her hand over her heart.

"What was all that about Draco?" Harry asked curiously.

"Oh...they don't like me talking to anyone alone, afraid I'll tell and more afraid I'll tell the wrong person. They're a bit protective over this I guess, no harm in that," Zora assured Harry.

"Well, you'd better get going while the spell lasts. See you later," she said to a spot just to the right of Harry's shoulder.

"Alright, see you," he said as he too began to walk to the staircase and out of the painting.

Harry lie in bed, he could feel the comforts of the mattress slipping from him as he found his mind had placed him on a broomstick. He soared across the Quidditch field, wearing a pair of bright pink pajamas and chasing the Golden Snitch. He stretched out his hand, but the Snitch had turned into Draco's head.

"Get your filthy pink tentacles away from me, Potter!" the blonde head screamed at him as it soared inches in from of his eyes.

"I don't have tentacles," Harry replied, "I have claws!"

It was quite a silly dream he admitted to himself, and felt it slipping away. He was sad to see it go, for so long he had been haunted with memories and mounting fears of Voldemort and death and destruction.

He now found himself lying in his bed, still dreaming, and hearing a voice so close he thought someone was in the bed with him.

"Harry," the voice called gently. "Harry, I need you to open your eyes...open you eyes in your dream, but don't wake up, do you understand?"

"Yes," he said as he opened his eyes. He saw through the darkness the Zora was sitting on his bed. "What are you doing in my dream? I've never had this one before."

Harry noticed she looked nervous and frightened and kept switching her gaze beyond Harry's eyes or suddenly to her left and peered at Dean Thomas' bed.

"Ok, Harry...I need you to help me," she said patiently, her head snapping to her left again and then back to Harry.

"What is it, Zorro?" he asked as his delirious state of mind covered his thinking.

She let out a deep agitated sigh before continuing, "I need to make you sleep walk...I need to get to Severus, something's happened and I need his help."

"But I don't sleep walk! I never walk in my sleep, I fall off beds sometimes but I never walk," Harry replied although he couldn't rationally think why he was offended, but at the same time it made perfect sense.

"You won't have to walk, I'll make you. I need to inhabit your body while you're dreaming and get Severus to help me...you're the only one I can do it with."

"Why me? Why not Ron? I was having a dream with Draco's head!"

"I am so going to murder you if I get out of this alive," she replied angrily. "I need to you to give me permission, Harry...say I can do it."

"I can do it," Harry replied.

"No! Say that Zora can inhabit my body."

"You can inhabit your body," he replied.

"Harry...do not make me turn you into sludge," she replied angrily.

"Shh! You'll wake the neighbors! Okey Dokey! Do the body thing, I'll let you."

Zora let out a sigh of relief and a smile before diving head first into Harry's chest. Harry felt suddenly as if he had no control over his own movements, yet he was moving his arms freely at his sides. Harry also noticed that the discomfort in his bottom back had left him.

His body was sitting up in his bed and he could feel Zora's heart beating rapidly as she struggled to untangle his body from the sheets surrounding him.

"Glasses," he echoed inside his head as his feet dangled over the edge of his bed.

"Oh, right," Zora replied, but Harry felt that his own mouth had moved and heard his voice echo behind hers.

"Why did that happen? I heard me talking with you," he asked inside his mind, his voice still dreamy.

"Because you are talking...I'm controlling your body," she replied as she fumbled for his glasses.

"No illegal stuff you know?" he reminded her.

"We don't have time to do anything fun anyway," she replied, his voice underlying her own as Harry listened to her.

Harry felt his bare feet hit the cold floor and Zora quickly put on his thin pair of slippers. She did not stop to take up a cloak or robe, but simply walked toward the door and down the stairs to the common room.

"Good thing you don't sleep in the nude," she said as she walked down the halls.

"No nude...just sleep," his still sleeping mind retorted.

In any other condition, Zora might have laughed, but Harry could feel her need to get some sort of help. It was as if she was feeling her life was in danger. Even when she was sitting on his bed, asking him to do something this absurd, he thought it completely normal and asked no questions. Now that he was beginning to wake up a little and could sense her urgency, and he was wondering why, but he remained silent all the way to their destination.

Zora knew the way perfectly and knew every password and secret passage way to her destination. His body arrived near the dungeons, nearly half way across the castle, in no time at all. Zora whispered a password at a statue of a famous wizard Harry did not recognize. He burst to life and peered questionably at Harry's body, but leapt aside all the same.

Zora lead his body into a room Harry had never seen before, it was lined with shelves of books, bottles of powders and liquids, and even a few jarred creatures submerged in colored liquids. The whole room smelled like a potions workshop. In one corner, Harry noted a snoring body lying in a plain bed. Zora lead him to the body and began to shake it urgently.

"Severus!" she called at the sleeping body, Harry's voice echoing under. "Severus! Wake up you old buffoon!" she added with a shout, making Harry's throat strain.

At this last outburst, Snape popped up his head. His hair was dangling in his face and his eyes were still closed. He looked surprised and the interruption and began to struggle to waken himself. He threw his legs over the side of his bed and rubbed his eyes with the backs of his hands, forcing himself to wake.

He looked at Harry's body and his eyes grew even wider at the recognition.

"Potter, you have a lot of nerve coming in here! What are you doing?!" he let out as he stood from his bed.

"Severus, shut up, please!" Zora said, holding up Harry's hand to silence him. "I need your help now!"

Snape peered closer at Harry's face, making Harry wish he could jump back. But Zora kept him in his spot and looked back with equal intensity.

"Zora?" Snape muttered.

"You're a genius! Now! I need your help now!"

"What's going on?" he asked, his face covered with concern and attention.

"I've been abducted," Zora replied calmly with Harry's voice. "I don't know what happened, I was tied up and brought here...I don't know where I am, or how I got here, I remember seeing windows, lots of windows...I don't even remember going outside."

"Where are you now? Describe it," Snape pestered urgently.

Harry felt his head turn from side to side, but only saw Snape's room. Zora on the other hand was obviously seeing differently.

"It's a small room. Marble walls and there's a window, but it's too high up for me to reach. There's four walls and one door. I tried to open it, but it won't unlock, not even for me."

"No, it'd be enchanted," Snape replied thoughtfully. "How did you get there?"

"I was sleeping in the common room, I drifted off while I was studying. I woke up and I was tied up. I saw...a monster, he was dragging me. It was big and had a lot of legs, too many for me to count. He dragged me out of the room and past Dumbledore's office...I saw the statue. Then I hit my head and I woke up here."

"When did this happen? It's...one now," Snape pestered.

"Only one? It was just 12:30 when I fell asleep," Zora replied, Harry could feel his face shifting to match her voice.

"A passage way...it has to be," Snape muttered to himself.

Harry felt his face jerk suddenly and he looked to a wall completely covered with books.

"What?" Snape asked urgently. "What's going on? Zora?"

"It's coming for me," she uttered. "It's opening the door."

Harry felt her heart racing and saw a vision that made his own heart leap. She was in a white marble room with high ceiling towering above her, impossible to climb. She kept her eyes locked on the door as the sound of it unlocking filled her ears.

"Zora?" Harry could hear in the distance.

The door opened and a thin silvery rope glided into the room and wrapped itself around Zora's thin waist.

"Help me!" he felt his throat burn as she screamed and cried for help. He watched as her body fell backwards, his following in unison with hers. Her head hit the marble floor; his hit stone.

Snape towered over Harry's body. He was shaking his shoulders.

"Zora? Zora?" he was calling frantically.

"She's gone," Harry muttered. "She was taken...somewhere...I didn't see. A rope came out, silver rope...and wrapped around her. She fell back and hit her head. I think she's knocked out."

"Where was she, Potter?" Snape echoed loudly in his ears.

"In a cell...a marble cell I couldn't see anything else."

Snape dropped Harry's shoulders, letting his head hit the stone floor again and he rushed towards the door. Harry struggled to get himself up from the returning pain in his back and new pain from the back of his head. After his struggle to stand was finished, he quickly followed on Snape's heels as they ran through the corridors. Harry did his best to ignore his pain and keep u with Snape's frantic pace.

Snape stood before the ugly gargoyle protecting Dumbledore's office and screamed "Pepper Imps! Bloody Bastard! Let us up! Pepper Imps!"

The gargoyle gave an angry look at Snape and leapt aside. Snape stepped onto the moving staircase, but continued to quickly climb. Harry struggled to keep up with him.

Snape reached the top of the stairs and did not knock on the door, but simply threw it open and ran inside. Harry had never seen Snape rush to anything in his years at Hogwarts and was impressed by his quick reflexes and reactions as he moved.

"Dumbledore!" he shouted in the office.

Harry entered just after Snape, his chest heaving with the pressure of running down all the corridors and up the many stairs. He saw Dumbledore sitting behind his desk, dressed in purple robes with silver moons and stars carefully embroidered in the material. A matching nightcap adorned his head with a calm expression covering his face.

"Headmaster!" Snape let out, "it's Zora! She's been taken by him. She took over Harry's dream and told me. She was taken through a passage way somewhere between here and the other end of the castle going towards the Ravenclaw common room," he let out what seemed to Harry to be all one breath.

"Are you certain...it was in fact a vision?" Dumbledore asked past Snape's shoulder and to Harry.

"Well...I was dreaming and then I saw Zora in my room and she asked me to let her take over. Then I started sleep walking," Harry explained. Without still being in the dream, he realized just how preposterous it sounded.

"And she spoke though him," Snape added hastily. "It was her, professor, I'm sure of it. Not even Potter has the guts to speak to me in that tone...not on his own at least."

"I will wake the other Heads and put on a search of the castle. It is possible that she is still here."

"She's not here!" Snape burst out, slamming his hand against Dumbledore's desk. "Her cell was made of marble! This castle is complete stone!"

"It is possible that there are chambers he has built, Severus, you know this."

Harry knew he was referring to the chamber of secrets from years ago and it sent a shiver down his spine to think that there could be more hidden disasters surrounding them.

"And if there are, a search would do no good because they would be hidden! She's not here, I feel it...she's in some castle a long distance from here."

"When was she taken? A castle some distance from here would take at least two or three hours in any direction with the assumption that she got past the wards and not set off an alarm. You and I saw her in her room only an hour ago before she retired to the common room. How could she get from here to there in only an hour?"

"A passageway...I'm telling you, there's a passageway...somewhere, there has to be," Snape muttered desperately.

"I need you to calm yourself, Severus, and think. We will wake the other Heads and professors and begin a thorough search. If we do not find her we will call upon Aurors if we must and continue outside of the castle. But right now, Severus, I must ask that you remain calm and go and wake the professors and explain what's happened. And, Harry," Dumbledore began as he shifted his intent gaze again to Snape's left. "Harry, you must go back to your common room and stay there. Keep everyone from leaving the common room. It is very important. Severus, I suggest you tell Pansy to do the same and inform the other Heads to wake a student for the same purpose."

"Yes, professor," Snape replied, although Harry could tell he was not satisfied with this at all.

He turned on his heel and stomped out of the office. Dumbledore gave Harry a wink and a smile before Harry turned and hastily walked down the stairs, trying to catch up with Snape.

"Of all the dumbest...by the time they realize she's not here....she'll be, oh! The idiots!" Snape was muttering to himself. Harry began to walk back to the Gryffindor common room as Snape stalked in the opposite direction.

"Potter?!" Snape called angrily after him. "Where are you going?"

"What?" Harry asked as he turned towards Snape.

"Oh! To get the other two! I forget you don't work alone," he added with what sounded like an insult, and at the same time it did not.

"What are you talking about?" Harry couldn't help but ask. He was tired and his back was aching...and a close friend of his was in danger, making him feel uneasy and feel even more useless that he could not help her. "Dumbledore said to make sure no one leaves-."

"Well damnit, Potter! Get Longbottom or Finnigan to do it! Don't stand there and tell me you're not thinking about how to get out of the castle and how to find her right now!"

How did he know?? One section of Harry's brain was calculating how they would've gotten out...a passageway he had said. His brain was trying to figure out which one it could be.

"Look," Snape went on, "I'm not going to force you to do anything you don't want to. But I assumed you being the hero and all, you'd love this opportunity to get out and cause a bit of mayhem."

"But Dumbledore-."

"Fuck Dumbledore!" Snape sneered. "By the time they search the castle completely, secret rooms and all...she will be dead or worse. This isn't some ordinary student, I don't know if or how much you know, but it must be a substantial amount if she's close enough to you to probe your mind."

"So, you're...you're giving me permission to go after her?" Harry asked almost excitedly.

"I'll give you fifteen minutes to do whatever it is you have to do, I can give no more without it being suspicious."

"What if she's in the castle...what if it's a waste for me to look for her?"

"Then we'll find her here. Either way, I'd rather know that someone's doing something more to find her!" Snape looked angrily and resentfully towards the gargoyle and then his face softened. "Just bring her back to me, Potter. I don't know how much you know...she is my godchild...and she means a great deal to me. I'm not naïve enough to make you bring her back unarmed or even alive. Just bring her back...if you find her, bring her back."

"I will," Harry promised and began to race towards the common room, his slippered feet echoing in the quiet halls.