Harry’s right hand was so sticky with sweat that it felt suctioned to the stone behind him. The air in his lungs was warm, making his breathing erratic.

But he stayed on the wall.

He didn’t want to, but he did it. For practical reasons. The vacuumed echo was swirling around the tip of Snape’s wand, not his. Snape had read through every Defense volume he owned. Harry had only devoured the first book. And it was skinny. Flimsy in Harry’s opinion…

He knew nothing but simple, stupid spells and a sound enhancing charm that would be worthless in facing down a basilisk. Not to mention, his Protego was bloody wretched.

Curling his fingertips against the moist wall, Harry leaned forward as much as he dared. Snape was nowhere in sight. Large puddles of green water pooled on either side of the snake’s head like venom. The fangs were reflected in the water; their image contorted as the smooth water seemed to quiver in time to the basilisk’s whispered moans.

And Harry was alone. He felt naked and ignorant. He wasn’t a great wizard—he didn’t care what others thought. His heartbeat banged against the soft walls of his throat like a mallet while he waited; Harry was frightened.

Taking in gusty breaths through his nose, Harry slowly counted back from one-hundred…again. The basilisk’s rasping floated in between the descending numbers ticking off in his brain.

Master… Master… Harry held his breath, putting pressure on his eardrums to cause as much noise as he could. Eighty-eight, eighty-seven, eighty-six—

Master… Master… Master…

The sound was getting closer. Harry clutched the walls, painfully gouging the granite with his fingernails.

It wasn’t right.

Suddenly, something thick and heavy scraped along the wall, like leaves blowing around the playground. The basilisk had to be moving. It was a sickening sound.

Why is it moving? Harry’s head pulsed with the thought as his lungs fought against the muggy oxygen seeping into them. How is it even alive?

Snape was supposed to have killed it by now. Unless the basilisk had gotten to him first… Harry resisted any notion to hyperventilate. There was no way Snape could be dead already. Harry would have heard it, wouldn’t he?

He slid the sole of his trainer against the ground a single pace to the right, slowly dragging the rest of his body over in line with his foot. The sweat on his palm sluiced between the cracks, stinging the cuts on his injured hand. But Harry ignored the pain as he dislodged himself from the wall, taking tiny, water-logged steps toward the hideous stone serpent. His eyes skittered along the cave walls, searching for any sign of Snape or the basilisk.

Scales crackled as they grazed along stone. Harry jerked his head to the right, and froze.

“Stay,” he whispered into the darkness. “Don’t move anymore…please…” Harry swiped his tongue over his crinkled lips.

Master… The strange lament melted into an inquiry.

The voice was loud, now—all around him. Static-like hissing strung its way through Harry’s ears and caused the skin on his back and stomach to tingle. His shins felt like lead.

Faintly, Harry heard splashing in the distance, but the voice had mesmerized him. He stared hard at the deep patches of shadow spaced about the heaps of wet rock.

“Where are you?” Harry asked softly. Somehow, the tightness had eased in his stomach. He heard the dense scratching sound again.

Switching his wand into his dominant hand, Harry held the glowing holly further away from his torso and raised it up slowly. His arm went stiff as the sharp blue light wavered over large, blood-shot orbs. The red, spidery streaks glittered against the black slits.

Pounding footsteps clacked against the stone with watery splats. “Stay still!” Snape’s breathy exclamation wafted toward Harry as though it were filtered through a fog—muffled and thin.

Without moving his head, Harry dragged his eyes along the slimy, copper-coin scales and back to the peculiar, calm head of the basilisk. He could hear Snape moving behind him, but Harry couldn’t unlock his gaze from the large beads, glassy as if clouded with confusion.

His heart thudded lustily and the air was now scorching in his mouth, but Harry wasn’t afraid. An electric bolt of confidence zinged along his spine, and his scalp prickled.

Master… the basilisk hissed with a flicker of its tongue between rows of yellowed, dagger teeth.

“Don’t move,” Harry told it. His own commanding voice seemed unfamiliar and far away. It swirled above his head, just as it seemed to have done during the Dueling Club.

Yes, Master… Wait to kill… Wait... Its triangular head swayed drunkenly on a body obscured in the inky gloom of the cavern.

Harry couldn’t rip his eyes away from the disoriented monster; the slippery wand in his fist was long forgotten.

A short instant later, a cold and coarse palm reached around from behind and spanned Harry’s forehead, yanking him a step back from the basilisk.

The snake’s eyes flashed as it tilted its head.

Harry opened his mouth to speak once more, but sank his teeth into the tip of his tongue instead as the hand entangled in his fringe pulled him back further and pushed him away; black robes smeared in his vision as Snape’s wand arm reared back, and swished forward as if handling a bullwhip.

Harry barely heard the hoarse incantation tearing from Snape’s throat before the sound of a rooster’s crow ricocheted around them.

The screeching bark chilled Harry’s insides. He tried to side-step around Snape as the basilisk began to shudder. But the man instantly flipped around, grabbed a fistful of Harry’s jumper, and stumbled quickly into the darkness with him.

Harry’s wand flew out of his hand as he was jerked away. It rattled against the floor as it rolled, but he didn’t dare reach for it. Squatting down, Harry could feel Snape’s heaving chest against his shoulder.

The pulsating disk of light shone on the flailing serpent like a morbid spotlight; the basilisk hissed incoherently, and Harry was wracked with shivers as he watched its head thrash back and forth, cracking once against the wall of the Chamber before falling forward, and thudding against the jagged stone like a lifeless fish.

*************

They crouched in silence for a while. But the seconds didn’t drag this time, and Harry didn’t bother counting backwards from one-hundred.

A good portion of Snape’s face was eclipsed. Harry could only make out the tip of his crooked nose and a few strands of dull, twisted hair in the paltry wandlight. He knew that Snape was probably studying the milky, dead eyes of the basilisk. Harry, however, could have vomited at the sight.

He wasn’t mesmerized anymore; he didn’t even want to look. The basilisk’s skin was paling too quickly—the color of earwax. And it made him queasy.

Harry’s tongue was clinging to the roof of his mouth. He figured Snape must have been bothered by the gloppy, smacking sounds his tongue made as it peeled itself away, because Harry swore he could feel pressure in his temples from a glare off to his right.

Turning his head a bit, Harry blinked against the gloom. “I’m thirsty,” he explained. His voice cracked on each word.

Snape didn’t say anything. He tilted his face away and began fumbling with something in his pocket. Extracting a small, shadowed object, Snape pointed his wand toward it as if threading a piece of string through the eye of a needle.

Harry watched quietly as he sat on the sole of his shoe and hugged his other knee to his chest. An instant later, he heard a wet, tinkling sound as a jet of liquid trickled into the item that Snape must have transfigured—a goblet, maybe.

Wordlessly, he thrust the cup toward Harry. The liquid sloshed against the rim and dribbled over the side.

Harry didn’t even bother to sniff the concoction as he reached for it and pressed his lips against the slick wood and greedily sucked in a mouthful.

It was water. Cold, sweet, metallic water that tickled all the way down to his stomach. Harry took three enormous gulps before he felt Snape tugging at the base of the goblet.

“Slowly, Potter.”

Harry didn’t bother answering him. He swallowed what he’d been storing in his cheeks and pulled the cup away from his mouth, gasping for air.

“Thank you,” Harry spouted breathily, lifting the back of his wrist to swipe at a droplet of water that had seeped from his lips.

Pushing himself up from the ground, Snape ignored the gratitude and walked over to the weakly illuminated wand lying in the middle of the cave floor. He stooped and plucked it from the ground. The soft blue light sailed across the stiff head of the basilisk and extinguished as Snape wrapped his fingers around it, abandoning the serpent in total darkness.

Immediately, Snape tapped his wand against the air, replacing the doused Lumos with one of his own. Harry screwed his lids up tightly as the strong light beamed in his eyes. Snape lowered his wand to the floor and quickly passed Harry his own.

“Finish your water,” the man instructed, nodding toward the goblet that Harry held loosely at a dangerous slant.

Harry straightened his spine and slipped his wand through his belt loop before swirling the remaining liquid around in the bottom of his cup, tipping it back and polishing it off. He stood and handed his goblet to his professor when it was empty.

Snape clipped the neck of the chalice between two fingers and banished it away.

Running a sweaty hand over his fringe and all the way back to his neck, Harry blew out a slightly wobbly breath and jiggled one of his trainers against the stone floor. His suddenly realized his kneecaps were swimming around beneath his skin. They had to be.

He sighed again and peeked up at Snape. “That’s it, then?”

Snape eyed him sardonically. “Were you expecting fireworks and a parade, Potter?”

“No…” Harry scratched at the chilled specks of sweat on his forehead and exhaled through his nose this time. A witty comeback held no appeal for him.

“You’re white,” Snape pointed out.

Harry stared. “So what?”

Twisting his lips in to a frown, Snape wiggled his forefinger. Harry understood the gesture; he dragged his feet forward, hating the squirmy feeling in his knees. When he came close enough, Snape raised Harry’s chin with a single fingertip and snaked a thumb up to his cheekbone, pulling down the skin underneath one eye. Snape did the same to the other.

Harry wiggled his hands into his pockets, glancing over toward the exit; he said nothing as Snape clamped his hand around the knob at the top of his spine and squeezed his thumb and middle finger against the spots on his neck that made his scalp tingle when pressed.

“Were you coming to search for me?”

Harry snapped his gaze to the left at the question. He didn’t want to be interrogated. Not now. He wanted to get the hell out of here; he despised this cave. And for some reason, his stomach clenched as if he’d done something wrong.

He focused on Snape’s chest. “No,” he muttered. It was the truth. But Harry waited for the rebuke anyway.

After a few seconds, when it still didn’t come, Harry glanced up. Snape merely arched his eyebrows. He tightened his fingers again and smoothed the pad of his thumb back and forth at the side of Harry’s neck…once, twice.

And then he nodded. Just barely. But it was a different sort of nod—something Harry’d never seen from Snape before.

He didn’t know how to respond.

All of a sudden, Snape dropped his hand to his side and cleared his throat quietly. “Take out your portkey,” he said gruffly.

“It listened to me,” Harry nearly whispered. He felt tainted, and he didn’t understand why. He hadn’t done anything horrible, yet he still had the desire to soak off the sensation in the bathtub.

Snape pointed to Harry’s chest where the locket was concealed; his lips thinned. “Take it out.”

Lowering his chin to his chest, Harry slipped his thumb underneath the warm chain and pulled the portkey out of his shirt. The locket slipped along the links with a zip.

“You can speak to snakes, child,” Snape finally replied, fingering the heavy locket. “You are aware of this.”

“I know that, but—“

“Cast Lumos,” Snape broke in.

“Again?” Harry scrunched his face up into a crooked squint.

“Again.”

Harry shrugged, appeasing the man’s request. The glow in the cave fluttered as Snape put out his own light. He reached over with his free hand and pinched the thin chain between his thumb and forefinger, pulling it away from Harry’s collar bones.

Holding his wand-arm in front of him, Harry watched as Snape tapped the drooping metal with the very tip of the ebony. The necklace instantly grew several sizes, and the locket slid even further down the links, dangling near Snape’s hipbone. He tucked his wand into his waistband for a moment and wrapped his fingers around Harry’s upper arm, yanking him close.

Snape gripped Harry’s other shoulder and tensed, setting his mouth tightly as if preparing to hoist the boy up.

Sensing what was happening, Harry instinctively clamped his armpits together. “Oh, no…” he cried, shaking his head as he resisted. “No way I’m going to be carried like some baby. I’m not hurt at all!”

“We both need to be wearing the portkey, Potter, in order to be relocated,” Snape growled. “Swallow your foolish pride—“

“We could just go back the way we came, couldn’t we?”

“Completely idiotic,” the man snapped, contracting his grip. “And a waste of time. This will take us straight to the Headmaster. Use your brain, boy—“

Harry clenched his teeth, his head sagging backwards in a silent plea. But he bit his tongue.

Snape angled his brow at the boy for a brief instant and then rolled his eyes. “Fine. Put your light out. Wand away.”

He released one of Harry’s arms and squatted down to his level, retracting his own wand from his trousers before flipping the hair away from his nose and throwing the elongated chain around his neck.

Taken aback but obeying quickly, Harry listened as Snape whispered a strange incantation into the stuffy blackness and tapped the locket twice with his wand.

A fuzzy, turquoise ring of light instantly burst around the silver pendent. Harry felt Snape jerk him even closer and sling an arm around his waist.

“Three…two… one…”

Snape pressed his fingers firmly into Harry’s side as an invisible, smothering force sucked them away.

Harry’s chest expanded—tried to claw its way out of his ribs as he and Snape spiraled through the void. But the palm against his waist held him steady. He kept his eyes squeezed shut until he landed on solid ground. His soles hit the floor so hard that his toes stung.

“Breathe in,” he heard Snape say.

Saliva threaded through Harry’s lungs as he wheezed in a great mouthful of air. He coughed deeply for a moment before the blurred mass of an orange flame swam into his vision.

A shape-shifting flame. One of Dumbledore’s candles.

Harry gulped oxygen and glanced around.

“Better?” Snape’s voice floated down from above.

His fingertips were digging into Harry’s arm now, and they hurt, but Harry paid no mind to the new pain. His eyes were frozen on the Headmaster.

Seated behind his desk as placidly as always, Dumbledore clutched the mutilated diary of Tom Riddle, gaping inquisitively at the ink-encrusted hole like a child studying a twelve-legged insect.

The sword of Gryffindor rested against the nearest bookshelf, its handle glowing as if it had been engulfed in hot coals; its point dripped with black ink.

“What is it, Albus?” Snape asked quietly, loosening his grip on Harry’s arm when the boy began to wriggle.

Wrenching his head up, Dumbledore’s eyes unclouded as if noticing his occupants for the first time. “Ah, Severus,” the old man uttered thoughtfully, his face drawn and pale. “You and Harry have returned. “

Snape gave Harry’s sore arm a gentle, apologetic wring as they stared.

“I believe, my boy, that we have much to discuss,” Dumbledore continued, setting the diary down gently. He laid a wrinkled hand against the cover.

Harry glanced up at Snape, searching the steady features. The man’s throat rippled with a swallow. “For once, Headmaster,” he said, “we are in absolute agreement.”