Harry Potter and the Elemental Wands

Harry Potter and the Elemental Wands
Chapter 10 - Fate ...?

It was almost as if time had stopped. He saw every single detail - the poison pump down the snake's fangs, the twist of muscle under its scaly flesh, the final flaring of its hood and the violation of Hermione's unblemished skin. A cry fell, half formed, from his lips. After what seemed like minute, Nagini withdrew leaving two points of bright red on her neck, and slithered down her shoulders into the darkness.

Hermione gasped, and reached up to feel her wound. Her fingers passed delicately over the snakebite. 'The Wand, Harry!' she screamed, upon detecting nothing larger or more serious than the bite.

Harry nodded, and reached for it. Blocking out the sound of Ron's chokes, he removed the Wand from its place in the globe.

A sudden warmth filled his fingers; not unlike the feeling that had come over him when he had purchased his first Wand five years ago at Ollivander's. But this was different. It was as if he was holding, in his sweaty palm, all the energy that had ever existed.

He felt the immense power of the ocean as old as the world itself, and the fire of a thousand volcanoes, and the bitter pressure of the winter wind. He had them all at his bidding. But something much larger and much stronger was now coming to him.

The earth beneath his feet was trembling at that which he held. He heard the songs of trees and of grasses, felt the invulnerability of mountains. And most of all, he grasped the control of the animals that paced the land. It wasn't much, yet it was plenty.

'Leave them,' Harry ordered Lord Voldemort in Parseltongue, the language of the Earth.

For a moment, he had been afraid that it wouldn't work on an Animagus. But slowly, even regretfully, the giant snake relaxed its body and backed away.

'I don't need them anymore, anyway,' Voldemort hissed back, speaking broken Parseltongue with his feline lips. 'You were the one I was really after. And now you have the Wand. Your friend is doomed, bitten by one of the most deadly snakes in the world. I have had my amusement. Now, I will have you!' He coiled and sprang, eyes blazing and fangs slashing, directly at the boy.

Who ducked instinctively. He felt scales graze the top of his head, but nothing more. Harry twisted around, preparing himself for a second attack, only to see Voldemort be carried by inertia through the only window in the Tower. The glass shattered and fell like crystal to the floor. With a ear-splitting hiss, Voldemort fell out of sight.

Harry took a deep breath. Then another. It had been too easy. Fresh air diffused the metallic smell of spilled blood. He moved over to the window and risked a look outside.

The ground was smattered with broken glass. But there was no body.

So. The fall hadn't killed him. Harry felt stupid just for hoping that it had happened. It would take much more than a fall to kill Lord Voldemort. But what about the prophecy?

'Harry,' Arandelle's said quietly from across the room. The Wand in Harry's hand still glowed like the moon. He didn't move.

'Harry.' Her voice was more urgent this time. It cracked as she coughed up blood.

'What is it, Arandelle?' he asked wearily and turned around.

Just in time to see Hermione waver and fall.

---

'Isn't it a bit late for you to be wandering around, Artemis?'

Professor Dale grinned at the Headmaster, flashing her white teeth.

'I was just going to give these notes to Professor Flitwick,' she said, holding up an armful of parchments. 'Some research on Deflecting Charms.'

'Well, just be careful,' Dumbledore warned, heading off towards his office.

She continued on to the Entrance Hall, looking for the set of stairs that led to the West Tower. A soft sliding noise reached her ears, and she stopped.

'Lumos,' she murmured, drawing out her wand. The dim light enhanced the shadows in the corner of the Hall. There was no one in sight.

She was instantly suspicious. Readying every defense spell she knew, she took another step forward. Then another. Nothing happened. Professor Dale was about to blame it all on her imagination when she felt something cold and scaly brush against her ankle. She drew up the hem of her teachers' robes slowly.

And leapt back with a startled cry, knocking the snake from her foot just as it was about to strike.

It drew back its fangs and began to writhe towards her. She glanced over her shoulder, wondering where she could run when she met the wall. Then an idea came to her.

She turned and ran as fast as she could away from the creature. Nagini came after her. Gathering every ounce of her speed, strength and hope, she leaned back slightly as she hit the stone wall.

She ran up the wall.

Nagini stopped dead, and hissed angrily. She kept running blindly, turning only when she hit the ceiling of the Entrance Hall. She took a final step, and whirled around to face the ground. Her hands flew out, reaching for the rafters.

For a moment, she hung in mid-air.

Then she was staring at the ground, breathing hard, and - it must be said - grinning.

She released her grips in on the rafters, and gravity pulled her down to the floor where she'd been only moments before. One leg was bent at the knee. The other was deadly straight, aiming to land on the snake. Spitting poison, Nagini tried to move out of the way, but it was too late.

Dust and reptile blood billowed as she landed.

But Professor Dale merely smiled to herself, and dusted her hands off. Upon closer inspection of her rather flat opponent, her smile faded. 'Nightmare Viper,' she murmured to herself. 'That means ...Oh no ...'

---

'We have to get her to the Hospital Wing,' Ron said through gritted teeth.

'There's not enough time,' Arandelle said. Hermione's eyelids were fluttering deliriously. 'It's a Nightmare Viper. She'll die before we get her down the stairs.'

Upon receiving blank stares from Harry and Ron, she said, 'Sixth year Defense Against the Dark Arts. Hey, I don't sleep through all my classes.'

Harry smiled faintly at her attempt at a joke. But all humor was banished from his mind in a instant. 'What else do you know about them?'

She frowned in concentration, ignoring the blood that was crusting up on her forehead. 'Professor Dale said there was an Immunity Potion that would protect you from the poison. But it's supposed to be very expensive - they're trying to develop a cheaper formula.'

'It wouldn't work anyway,' Ron said. 'She's already been bitten.'

'Ron, you don't understand.' Arandelle's amber eyes were overwhelmed with sadness. 'There's no cure.'

Harry's mind went blank. A ringing filled the tense silence in his ears. No, he refused to accept the fact. There had to be a cure ... there had to be. Hermione would survive. He couldn't imagine life without her.

'There has to be something,' he said stubbornly. 'A universal cure. Anything.'

'There are no universal cures, Harry,' she said quietly. 'Not even close.'

'But I was bitten by a snake once,' he insisted. 'A Basilisk. No snake can be as poisonous as a Basilisk.'

Then it hit him. 'Phoenix tears! Fawkes healed my wound down in the Chamber of Secrets.'

Ron leapt to his feet. 'I'll go down to Dumbledore's office.'

Arandelle shook her head quickly. 'No need. I can be a phoenix.'

She blurred beyond recognition for a moment as she became the phoenix with the golden eyes that Harry had seen only once before. The swan sized bird hobbled over to Hermione's limp body on its taloned feet and laid its head on her neck.

'Make me cry,' she said, or squawked, through her beak.

Ron and Harry stared, first at her, then at each other. Harry thought fast.

'Err ...' he racked his brains for something horrible, then decided to tell his own life story. 'Imagine that your parents were killed before you could walk, and that you never knew them ...' He tried to make it as graphic as he dared, but somehow recalling the faint images and voices of his past made him stop very suddenly.

'My mother died before I knew her,' Arandelle said. 'Think of something else. Quickly.'

Ron stared at the floor, thinking. Harry, meanwhile, tried another tactic.

'Imagine all the phoenix poachers ...' he trailed off, wondering how to elaborate.

The phoenix shook its head. 'Won't work. Come on. Something real; something tragic. Anything. Anything.'

Adrenaline was fogging Harry's mind. Somehow, he couldn't manage to think of anything realistic. How was he to make her cry? He seriously doubted whether any other person had ever thought about the subject on purpose.

Then suddenly Ron blurted out, 'I love you.'

Arandelle's head snapped around. 'What?'

'Not the time, Ron,' Harry muttered.

'No,' Arandelle insisted. 'Say it again. Just do it.'

'Uhh ...' Ron hesitated very self-consciously. 'I, er, love you.'

'Like you mean it, Ron.'

'I love you,' he said for the third time, putting has much of his heart into those words as he dared.

The phoenix's eyes gleamed star bright. A single tear formed, and it pressed its head to Hermione's wound. The pearly tear coagulated around the snakebite and glowed, seeming to pile itself into the pinpricks of scarlet. The very air was tense as they waited to see whether it had worked.

Hermione's body spasmed violently. Then she groaned and rolled over. A moment later, her eyes flickered open. 'Harry? Ron?' she asked vaguely, struggling to sit up. 'What happened?'

'Arandelle saved you,' Harry said simply.

'Arandelle?' Hermione picked up the phoenix by her side. 'Oh, Arandelle!' she said wonderingly, hugging the bird tightly.

It squirmed out of her grasp, clearly uncomfortable. Arandelle, in phoenix form, fluttered halfway across the room to the shattered door and out of sight leaving the two, and Hermione who was still to dazed to follow, behind.

---

'So what was it like?' Ron asked sounding genuinely interested. 'You know, being dead and all.'

Hermione sighed. 'Ron, if I had died, nothing would have saved me. Not even phoenix tears.'

'You know what I mean.' He dug into a bag of Bertie Botts' Every Flavor Beans, spilling a few across his lap and into the folds of the crimson bean bag in the Gryffindor common room. 'Was it all dark, or was it floaty and full of clouds?'

'How about this, Ron,' Hermione suggested scathingly. 'I will force Crookshanks down your throat and then you can see for yourself what it's like to be "dead".' On her lap, ginger coloured Crookshanks purred obligingly.

'Never mind,' Harry told the cat before it could attack. Instead, Crookshanks purred even louder, which brought giggles from everyone, even Arandelle who had been unusually quiet ever since she had saved Hermione.

They had admitted themselves to the Hospital Wing later that night, and had spent the next few days being fawned over by Madam Pomfrey. But they had only been in there for a few hours before they heard Dumbledore speaking to McGonagall outside the Hospital Wing door.

' ... even in that state,' Dumbledore had said

A moment of silence. 'Are you sure, Albus?' Professor McGonagall had asked chokingly.

'Nightmare Viper. Almost definitely. Artemis believes it. I asked Severus and he agrees.'

'Then ... you - you don't think ...'

'That it was Nagini? One of the last known Nightmare Vipers in the world?' Dumbledore sighed. 'I don't know. I've half a mind to go in there right now and ask Harry what he was up to last night ... but I don't think I will. Dark days are coming, and he will need his rest.'

'If it was Nagini ... you know what that means, surely ...'

'I know what that means,' Dumbledore said heavily. 'Voldemort was here. He has found a way to breach the grounds. Almost certainly he was after Harry's Wand.'

McGonagall gasped. Dumbledore chuckled ever so quietly.

'No need to worry, Minerva. All four of them are alive now - which means that either Voldemort has turned soft, or he was beaten to his prize. And, after years of fighting Lord Voldemort, I'd be very much surprised if it was the former.'

'Have you ever heard of a wager, Dumbledore?' McGonagall asked drily.

The Headmaster laughed. 'What is it? Don't you believe me? And don't you believe that they could've done it by themselves?'

'Miss Granger is the only one with any sense in that group. And maybe Miss Winters. But the rest of them ... I never would have guessed it.'

'Keep guessing, Professor McGonagall,' Dumbledore had said, and the two teachers had moved on.

---

'Did she tell you how she did it?' Ron asked lazily.

'What?' Arandelle asked.

'Dale. How she killed Nagini.'

She shook her head. 'Nope.'

'You should ask her sometime,' he said, with the air of someone mysterious and very powerful. Then, he made an effort to sit up, and held up two beans. A pale gold and a brown. 'Okay. Which one should I eat?'

Hermione rolled her eyes. 'I bet you a Galleon the yellow one is caviar,' she muttered under her breath.

'Not a chance, Herm,' Harry said, leaning over slightly in her direction. 'The yellow one is petrol. And, I bet the brown one is cardboard.'

'I'm thinking butter, and maybe jalapeno?' Arandelle grinned.

'Jalapeno is green,' Harry said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. 'Dumbass.'

Arandelle thwapped him.

Ron, oblivious to this side conversation, stared at the beans for a moment and popped the brown one in his mouth. He chewed, and gagged.

'Fish oil ...' he made a tortured face, and fumbled for a handkerchief. Hermione looked horrified at the thought. Harry burst out laughing.

Ron sniffed the last bean carefully. 'Smells like butterbeer,' he reported.

'Hah!' Harry clapped his hands together once in triumph. 'Petrol!'

'Hang on, Harry,' Hermione said. 'Butterbeer doesn't smell like petrol. It smells like ...'

'Butter?' Arandelle offered between giggles.

'Yeah, that and -'

'Beer, maybe?' It was Ron this time.

'Shut up, Ron. Butterbeer smells like alcohol.'

'Yeah - ergo, beer.'

'Shut up, Ron.'

Harry, however, was looking apprehensively at the tiny bean in Ron's hand. 'Champagne?' he offered.

'Vodka,' Arandelle said with an air of finality.

'Vodka isn't a Bertie Bott's flavor!' Ron looked outraged.

'Yes it is,' Hermione put in. 'I saw it in The Official Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans Flavor Listing in Flourish and Blotts. It's like the Muggle dictionary.'

Ron's expression changed to dumbfounded. 'There's an Official Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans Flavor Listing? But doesn't that take out all the fun?'

He was distracted from the answers, however, by something of a grey tennisball that rocketed into him, sending him flying backwards.

'Pig!' he said excitedly. 'It's a letter from home,' he added, pulling the message off the owl's leg.

'What does it say?' asked Harry.

'"Dear Ron,"' the owner of the name read out. '"I received your letter just this morning. I think it's a wonderful idea. Harry, Hermione and Arandelle are welcome to stay over for the Christmas holidays if they want to. If nothing unexpected occurs, I will expect to see all of you here at The Burrow in just over a week. Enjoy your last week of term."
'It's signed, Mum (Molly Weasley).'

Hermione squealed in delight. 'Oh, this is going to be great! We're going to have so much fun.' She reached out and grabbed a handful of Arandelle's robes. 'You and I are going to have to go shopping in London together.'

'Are we?' Arandelle murmured, looking slightly worried.

Hermione cast a slightly furtive glance at Harry, then leaned over so that they could talk in private. 'You saved me, Arandelle,' she said quite seriously.

'Ron saved you,' Arandelle corrected, so quietly that Hermione wasn't sure whether she was supposed to have heard it.

'If there's ever anything I can do ...' she trailed off. 'You know you don't even have to ask.'

Arandelle smiled grimly. 'I'll be sure to let you know if anything comes up that you can help me with.'

Hermione nodded. Then, 'In the meantime, we're going to have some fun together ...'

---

The door to Dumbledore's office swung open and Dumbledore strode in. His expression was sober and there were dark wrinkles under his eyes. He sat down at his desk for a few moments, rearranging parchments. Then he stopped, and furrowed his silver eyebrows slightly. There was a rushing of soft wings, and he looked up.

Fawkes was seated on his perch, humming softly to himself, as if he had spent ever day of the year there.

Dumbledore gave the bird a look. Fawkes stared back.

And suddenly, Dumbledore started laughing. It sounded like the tinkling of a silver bell, and was full of good humor and memories of better days. The phoenix sat nonchalantly, waiting politely for him to stop.

'Where have you been, old friend?' he asked the bird.

No reply. But something must've been said, because Dumbledore nodded.

'I see. And you thought that was important?'

Fawkes preened his feathers.

'Ah, of course. I understand perfectly, old friend.'

His phoenix gave him a very steady look.

'Absolutely.' Dumbledore said without a hint of a smile. 'Just in case they needed you.'

Fawkes flashed his master an impudent expression, as if to say, 'Do you know what Minerva would say if she heard you talking to a phoenix?'

Dumbledore laughed again. 'It's good to have you back, old friend. There may be times when friendship is our last line of defense. We're still friends, aren't we?'

This time his words yielded a yearning cry of the Phoenix Song. Dumbledore smiled obligingly. Then, 'It's good to have you back, old friend,' he said again, before standing up.

He moved slowly to the door and opened it. He hesitated, and looked back for a moment.

Fawkes was watching him solemnly through amber eyes.

Dumbledore grinned, then left the office, closing the door behind him.