His body was cold and smooth. Powerful muscles flexed under his scaled skin, propelling him along the ground towards the small opening the man-rat had found in the floor of the building. Down, down through the dark floors of the building he slithered, listening to the whispered voices of the humans above and below him.
Oh how he wished he could eat that man-ran; his sweet succulent flesh ripe for the taking yet forbidden by the master.
Slowly gliding between the floors, following only the scent of the man-rat, he finally came across the hole he needed to get to the next floor down. Shining metal bars met his skin as he continued on, sliding gracefully through the vent and onto the cool, dark stone floor.
All around him he could see the signatures of the humans who typically resided within these walls. Colorful figures which moved from room to room as they went about their day to day activities. But not now. Now their colors were fading as the creators of these figures had long left the building.
Soon, soon there would only be one person in the area. One person he would be going for. One person he was allowed to kill. Kill but not eat.
Hissing angrily at the memory of being told no, he slithered down the corridor towards a large rotunda surrounded by statues. None of those blasted moving portraits were in sight or anywhere nearby to sound the alarm.
Flicking his tongue cautiously, he slithered over to the nearest statue and wrapped himself around its feet, hiding in the long shadows the statue cast under the light of the flaming braziers which floated near the ceiling. Perfect. Even the most eagle eyed of humans wouldn’t be able to find him here.
Now. Now he would wait.
It wouldn’t be long before the human would come, the man with the flaming red hair, and he would get his first taste of blood.
Perhaps, if he had the time, he could go into the hall of gleaming orbs and see which would speak to him. He had been told there was an orb in there which may speak to him though he was unsure of where it was or what it would say. The master had said it should be there, but even the master was not positive as to its location.
The master wanted it, yes, but the master wanted the dark-haired one more. If the dark-haired one knew of the orb, the dark-haired one would try to get to it first. But if the master got rid of the dark-haired one first, it would not matter what the orb said.
Orbs provided no heat, nor did they provide meat to feed on. Orbs were not like eggs; they could be put in a room and ignored for a lifetime. Orbs were not interesting like man-flesh was. Especially man-rat flesh.
‘Surely the master would let him eat the man-rat if the man-rat made the master angry again!’ he thought, flicking his tail happily at the thought of silencing the man-rat with his coils.
The sound of shoes clacking down the hall stirred him from his thoughts. The time had come.
Suddenly the man stopped in the hall, his shoes squeaking slightly on the polished marble as he turned and sighed before carrying on down the hall towards the rotunda with the statues. Quickening his pace, he turned quickly and walked closely to the statue just across from the hiding spot, carrying on down one of the long dark hallways before coming to a stop again.
“Corned beef again,” the man’s voice could be heard muttering happily as he pulled a rather crinkly item out of a pocket. “My favorite.”
Slowly, the sounds of the man eating diminished as he waited, silently, hidden in the shadows of the statue. Soon, soon his time would come. Soon the man would become bored with his task and become distracted with other things. Rarely does anything happen on watch after all. Besides, who would expect to be attacked by a snake in a human building?
Slowly, painfully, the time ticked by. Minutes stretching into what felt like hours as he waited, staring down the hall, tongue occasionally flicking to make sure there was only one human in the area.
For a while the man hummed, the sound of pages flipping echoing in the vast stillness of the halls. Soon enough, however, the tell-tale crinkle of paper stopped and soft, deep breaths filled the silence.
It was time.
Elias’s eyes snapped open with a jolt as awareness flooded in.
It was time.
The sun had long ago dipped below the horizon, the light of the moon filtering through the clouds which were gathering overhead, giving the ward a soft glow. The healers were huddled around a small candle at the other end of the ward, a silencing charm around them as they laughed and carried on so as to not disturb the residents.
Looking around slowly, Elias wondered what it was that had actually pulled him from his vision this time. None of the healers were nearby and his body still felt quite heavy from the effects of the Dreamless sleep. Something had to have pulled him from his sleep.
Something or some one.
Elias jolted back slightly as his eyes met a pair of owlish eyes staring at him near the floor under the bed next to him. Slowly, the eyes blinked before looking around wildly, quivering slightly in their sockets. With a grace that surprised Elias, the thin figure of a man crawled out from under the bed, dragging a well loved blanket along with him.
“F-frank?” Elias whispered, wincing as a spasm raced down his spine. “Wh-wh-what?”
Frank held up a finger to his lips as though motioning for Elias to be quiet, his eyes darting wildly around the room before he suddenly bit into the blanket he was holding and began rocking back and forth.
“F-frank, p-please h-help-p-p me!” Elias whispered, trying to sit up. “P-please! M-m-mister W-weas-sley is in-n-n d-d-danger! P-please, I n-n-need to t-t-tell the h-healers!”
Frank bit harder on his blanket, the ferocity of his rocking increasing for a moment before he suddenly stopped and cocked his head at Elias as though looking at him for the first time. Frank stared at him for a long moment then turned and looked towards Alice, who was sitting on the end of her bed, looking out the window and tapping her lips. Slowly, she nodded before suddenly humming a nonsensical tune to herself and falling backwards onto her bed, reaching up and grabbing the ends of her bedclothes and pulling them over her head.
Frank reached under the bed he had just been under and pulled out a vial of potion nearly the size of a large apple. Looking around as though he were afraid of someone coming to take his prize, he passed the vial to Elias who grasped it firmly so as to not drop it and pulled it close to examine it.
In the light of the moon, the potion had an almost ethereal quality to it; its silver tone changing colors as it reflected and refracted the light. It was thick, almost syrup-like, in its consistency and clung to the sides of the vial as though it were made of molasses. The vial itself was only a quarter empty with signs that it had been relatively recently opened and resealed, but there was no mistaking what this was.
“Wh-what?” Elias stuttered, turning the vial of fulgur over in his hands as information about the potion flitted unbidden through his brain. “Wh-why?”
“F-f-f-f-foc-c-cus!” Frank said, his voice hoarse from disuse. “H-h-h-help. D-d-dr-r-ream. F-f-f-fight!”
Elias stared at the other man for a moment before looking at the vial in his hand. Could he do it? It was made to aparate long distances after all, wards or no. But it was a poison, he could die. He could die, but so would Mr. Weasley if he did nothing. And Elias knew he would be the first of many to die if nothing was done. How many people’s blood would be on his hands if he didn’t do something now. He had to do something!
He didn’t even know how to aparate.
“F-f-fight,” Frank said, pushing the vial closer to Elias’s mouth. “D-d-dream. F-f-focus!”
Elias turned his head towards the healers in the corner and nodded. If he tried to tell them what was going on, they would just ignore him. Normal people didn’t have visions where they were seeing through the eyes of a snake after all, and the more insistent that that was what he was seeing, the less likely they were to believe it was anything other than his brain playing tricks on him or the potions interacting with each other.
But he knew what he saw. He knew it was true.
Looking back at the vial once more and breathing heavily, he popped the cork out of the top and closed his eyes for a moment. He had to do this now while his thoughts were still focused. He had to do this now before Mr. Weasley died. Cedric’s blood on his hands was more than enough for a lifetime. He had to stop this now.
Throwing his head back, he sucked the potion out of the vial as quickly as he could, its bitter taste coating his tongue and throat in a way the diluted version he had been taking for months never did.
Spluttering slightly as some stuck in his throat, Elias noted with a shock that everything around him was changing. Everything seemed to have slowed down, tendrils of magic hung in the air where silencing charms had been cast, and around him small crackles of what seemed to be raw energy were beginning to crackle. For the first time in months, his head felt clear and his muscles felt as though he had complete control of them.
“Focus!” Frank’s voice called to him, cutting through his awe at the sight of the magic which surrounded him. “F-focus!”
“Frank, lay down!” one of the two healers called to him from the corner, walking towards them. “Come on, Frank, leave Elly alone.”
“Focus!” Frank continued muttering to himself as the healer gently hoisted him off of the floor and guided him to his bed. “D-d-dream!”
Elias closed his eyes and focused on the rotunda he had been hiding in as a snake. The memory of the dark stone floor and the cool marble of the statue coming to mind, overshadowed by the flickering of the brazier floating overhead. The brazier burning with a magical fire not unlike that which was beginning to burn and writhe in his stomach, making him feel as though he would vomit soon.
He was running out of time; the magic around him was beginning to crackle more ominously.
“Elly, what do you have in your hand?” the healer said, her shoes clacking towards him. “Elias? Where did you get-”
Suddenly Elias let out a pained gasp as his magic suddenly contracted, pulling him into it and slamming him into what felt like a net. A few seconds of feeling as though he were going to be forced into a million pieces as he passed through the net and his magic contracted once again, slamming him through the net which had stopped him initially and into another one. He tried opening his eyes only to find himself blinded by the brilliant bright light of the tendrils of magic which were surrounding him. Burning him. Shocking him.
“Focus!” Frank’s voice sounded in his ears, though he knew instinctively it was a memory as he closed his eyes once more and brought the image of the rotunda to mind once more.
His magic was burning him alive, pulsating and writhing under his skin before blasting him through what felt like no less than four more nets before finally expanding and reaching into every portion of his body. Gasping for breath, he opened his eyes once more and was shocked to find himself standing in the middle of the dark stone rotunda, surrounded by the statues he had only seen through snake eyes.
He had made it.
A loud whirring as a rarely used alarm began blaring and shook him from the lovely dream he was having about his wife making dinner. He hadn’t meant to fall asleep while he was supposed to be on guard, but he had had such a long day chasing down several cursed muggle items that he had nearly forgotten that it was his day to guard the prophecies anyways. What he really wanted was to go home, have a nice hot meal, kiss his wife, and climb into bed. Instead, he found himself sitting on the floor deep in the bowels of the ministry, guarding a door that anyone who tried to break into would have to go through multiple wards.
Blearily he looked around trying to place what the sound was coming from and what it meant. There weren’t many alarms which would go off in the ministry; surely tonight wouldn’t be the night they would go off. What were they even set to again? It had been so long since he had started working for them that he had honestly forgotten what they had told him all those years ago in orientation.
A flicker of movement to his right had him immediately freeze in place, his mind whirring as he swallowed hard as the realization of what the alarm meant and what he was looking at sunk in.
Along the wall to his right, a large snake slowly slithered towards him, seemingly trying to be as silent and stealthy as possible, its scales glistening in the light of the torches which lined the walls. Somehow, a snake had made its way into the depths of the ministry and was slowly working its way towards the very door he was guarding. A door behind which the very prophecy You-Know-Who and Harry Potter were mentioned in. All the while, the alarm signaling a breach in the wards was blaring.
Frantically reaching for his wand, Arthur Weasley realized a moment too late the snake was in position to strike, its body coiled back and head reared. His hand closed around the hilt of the wand just as a loud, crackling bang was heard from the nearby rotunda, the sound startling both himself and the snake long enough for him to dodge the snake’s strike.
“No!” a voice screamed, echoing down the hallway. “Run!”
As he scrambled away from the snake who was now slithering towards him again, Arthur couldn’t help but wonder where the voice was coming from. Surely there were Aurors who would be swarming the building soon enough, but there were none who were in the general vicinity of this corridor when he had last checked. Even the Unspeakables had gone home.
Suddenly, Arthur felt all of the hair on his arms stand on end as he managed to finally get his feet under him and begin fleeing from the snake who was still in pursuit of him. It felt as though he had been shuffling around the house and would shock himself on any metal object. It pulled each of his hairs away from his skin and filled him with unease.
As he neared the rotunda, he noticed a flickering light coming towards him. As he approached it, he quickly realized it was not a light which was flickering, but rather a person. A person who seemed to be made entirely of magic.
Their skin flickered as the magic contained within them coursed beneath it. Their hair stood on end from the force of the energy swirling around them. Tendrils of magic reached out from the figure and touched the walls and floor, crackling as they did so. Raw magic licked its way over the figures skin, leaving almost floral burns behind as it went.
“Run!” the figure gasped as it staggered towards him. “Run!”
And run he did, the snake continuing to follow him, though it paused when it saw the figure heading towards it as though it didn’t know what to make of what was occurring. Arthur had nearly made it to the figure when the snake lunged for him once more, snapping at the hem of his robe, causing him to lose his footing momentarily.
“NO!” the figure screamed hoarsely, the magic emanating from it pulsating wildly.
Suddenly, the figure leapt forward, using seemingly all of the strength it had left to land on the snake. The magic surrounding the figure crackled as the snake suddenly began to writhe uncontrollably. Its head arched backwards as its tail whipped around, catching the figure’s ankle. Though it seemed to be trying to throw the figure from its body, the snake was unable to find the strength to do so.
Arthur stood in shock for several moments as the two wrestled, seemingly endlessly, before suddenly there was a flash of light and an explosion of raw magic which threw him from his feet, blasting him across the room. A deafening roar filled the air before suddenly everything stopped.
Breathing heavily in the sudden silence, he slowly pulled himself to his feet as he heard the clattering of footsteps running in his direction down the long, main corridor.
There, lying in the middle of the hallway, was the figure of a young man, roughly Ron or the twins’ age, with his arms wrapped tightly around a massive deceased serpent.
Leaning over, Arthur was shocked to see the teen was still breathing, though his breaths were coming in short, agonal gasps. His skin was covered in burns still flickering with magical energy. Large, almost grid-like slices could be seen on his skin; his nightclothes were covered in blood which oozed from the wounds. Tears leaked from the corners of his eyes as what little breathing he was doing slowed and stopped.
Arthur fell to his knees gasping for his own breath, the adrenaline slowly leaving his system though his heart continued to pound rapidly.
“Arthur? Arthur!” A voice said as a set of Aurors ran up to him. “Arthur, what happened?”
Arthur shook his head mutely as he stared at the figure of the boy and the snake lying together. He didn’t know. He didn’t think he would know what had happened in a million years. Not even five minutes ago, he had been sleeping and dreaming of a nice dinner.
“Arthur, look at me,” Kingsley said, grabbing him roughly by the shoulder and spinning him away from the two bodies lying on the floor. “Arthur, what happened.”
“I … don’t know.”
Chapter 43
Chapter End Notes:
I did say this would be chaos.