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Amphitrite	By : AndreaLorraine Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Snape/Hermione Views: 9422 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 9
- 10
- 11
Severus turned wide eyes on Lucius. The blond man had frozen,
his every muscle rigid. He was listening
hard, perhaps trying to judge where the wolf was. They had both read accounts of people who had
survived encounters with werewolves simply by staying perfectly still; if the
wind was right, the wolf would not smell them.
As long as something else caught its attention, they might be safe.

But no sound came to aid Lucius in pinpointing the wolf�s
location. It could be anywhere, and
chances were that even if it hadn�t seen them yet, it would soon. Slytherins were
well-versed in weighing two equally risky options. Both Severus and Lucius calculated the
possible outcomes swiftly, and came up with the same decision.

They stood quickly and quietly and began to make their
way back toward the cabins. Lucius could
hear Severus breathing rapidly. After
all he�d been through one might think him fearless, but the encounter at the Whomping Willow so long ago had permanently branded
him. Perhaps it had been the first time
that he had realized how fragile life truly was. If Potter had not pulled him back, he very
likely would have died. As it was, he�d
received quite a beating from the Whomping
Willow. His heavy breathing might
attract the wolf; they had sharp ears, after all, but there was nothing to be
done for it. Fear like that could never
be fully contained.

�I don�t suppose you have any Wolfsbane
handy?� Lucius whispered. Severus just
shook his head. Even if he had the
potion, there was no way they could administer it to the creature in its wolf
form.

It was a pity,
really. In the years since the war,
Severus had made great improvements on the Wolfsbane
potion. Remus Lupin was his willing test
subject and occasionally a collaborator.
Though his specialty was defensive spellwork,
he knew potions well enough to offer helpful suggestions when Severus was in a
bind. Not that they always went over
well � Snape still had a temper, and Remus knew how to provoke it. But after a while they had settled into a
familiar cooperation. Lupin was mainly
concerned with the way the potion made the subject look and feel; the original
formula aged its user prematurely and made him or her feel quite sickly for
several days after ingestion. Severus
was mainly concerned with whether or not it achieved the desired goal �
suppressing the transformation of the werewolf.
Together, they had managed to tweak the formula. Now Wolfsbane
prevented transformation for three months rather than one, tasted a good deal
better, and actually improved the appearance of the user. Due to Severus� work on the potion,
lycanthropy was at last becoming something that only a victim�s family, healer,
and alchemist knew about. He had won
many awards for his efforts, and his portrait now hung in the severe creature
wound unit of St. Mungo�s. He had even received several letters from
bite victims explaining how his potion had given them their lives back. Though he did not speak of it, Lucius knew it
pleased him to no end to finally be recognized.
Personally, he knew Severus had given many more lives back, in more ways
than one.

But none of that
would do them any good now. A shape was
moving towards them, greyscale in the moonlight. They both drew their wands and settled into a
dueling stance. Lucius was about to cast
a particularly nasty hex when he realized that the shape was too small to be a
wolf, not to mention that it was moving all wrong.

�Severus!�

�Hermione?� Snape�s voice was strange
when he said it.

�There�s a werewolf,
we have to get inside��

�Yes, we know!�
Lucius cut her off sharply. �We are
trying to do just that and you are hindering us!� If the circumstances had been less dangerous,
she would have been angered by his tone of voice. However, now she just blinked at him once and
then spun around, heading back in the direction she�d come. The two men followed wordlessly, Severus so
close to her that if he had been wearing his teacher�s robes she
would have caught her feet in the hem.

Lucius was just
starting to think they might make it when the wolf came into view. Fate was laughing at them; it was directly in
their path to the cabins. Its hairy,
emaciated back was to them for now.
Maybe, just maybe if they stood still and prayed�

For a breathless
minute they stood rigidly, beseeching every diety
they knew that the wind stay calm and the wolf distracted. The creature prowled agitatedly, sniffing at
the spot where Hermione had dropped her firewhiskey. It batted at the empty bottle, letting out a
frustrated yowl. And then, unbelievably,
it hunkered down and began to lope toward the cabins.

Thankfully everyone
had made it inside. Except
for them, of course. The wolf
prowled near the first cabin, sniffing the crack beneath the door. They heard the sound of claws on wood as it
scratched at it, smelling the people inside.

�Should we�should we
try to stun it?� Hermione whispered, barely loud enough to be heard.

�It would take all
three of us, and that might not even be enough,� Severus replied just as
quietly.

�And you�re drunk,�
Lucius added. �Your aim will be
questionable at best.�

�Well, it�s not going
to overlook us forever,� she pointed out.

�I would rather not
call it to us,� Lucius said, his voice unapologetically irritated. �Don�t you agree, Severus?�

�She�s right. It will notice us eventually. We still won�t have any cover an hour from
now.�

�But if we wait it
may wander far enough that we could make it to the cabins.�

�We can�t let it
wander. There are muggles
out there, past the wards,� Severus said.

Hermione frowned.

�Wouldn�t the wards
shock it, if it were to run into them?�

Both men looked at
her, mouths hanging partially open.

�Well�it would either
knock it out cold, or just make it very, very angry�� Lucius said slowly.

�We could change the
wards. Reset them,� Severus said,
nodding.

�Yes. Set them to kill werewolves��

�You can�t kill it!�
Hermione protested as quietly as possible.
�That�s a person in there!�

�If we don�t kill the
wolf it will probably be chewing our bones by sunrise!� Lucius hissed in
response. �If it�s between me and that thing, I choose me.�

�There�s got to be
another way!�

�Then think of it,� Snape said, his voice
deadly. He was quickly becoming fed up
with their bickering. At this rate
they�d be dead before they did anything.

Half-panicked,
Hermione wracked her brain. Lucius was
right about the stunning spells, and Severus was right about letting it wander
off. She would not even endeavor to
bring up the Killing Curse; instinctively she knew that neither
man would use it, and she didn�t want the creature dead, anyway. What other way was there?

�All
right. All right. Change the wards. But don�t kill it! Set it at a level that would kill something
similar. Make it take a nap until
sunrise.�

�You know your
magical creatures, Granger. Werewolves
have a very high resistance to magic.
We�d have to set it high enough for a bloody dragon or something.�

�Wait. How are we going to get it to approach the
wards?� At this, they both looked toward
Severus, only to find his spot empty. He
was already making his way toward the end of the beach. Lucius looked back at her, and for a moment
he resembled the man he had once been.
Through his wide, devious grin, he said simply,

�Bait.�

Anatole was mumbling to himself in Greek. Nick was silent, his face pale and blank.

�Shhh,�
Dawn said suddenly, her voice a sharp whisper.
�It�s here.�

Anatole stopped. His
lip quivered slightly as a shadow fell over the crack beneath the door. They could hear snuffling noises as the wolf
scented them. Dawn stood absolutely
still in front of the two men, her wand raised.
She had cast reinforcing spells on the door, but who knew if they would
hold?

All three of them
jumped badly when the wolf charged at the door, thumping against it loudly and
causing dust to shiver down from the ceiling.

�Oh fucking hell!� Anatole gasped, now several shades
whiter than Nick.

�Shhh!�
both Nick and Dawn hissed. Anatole closed his eyes and clapped a hand over his mouth.

There were more
snuffling noises at the crack beneath the door.
Then a low, menacing growl issued from the wolf. Shadows danced as it paced.

Just go away.
Please just go away�Dawn
thought desperately, her wand quivering in her hand. If the wolf managed to break through the
door, she would have to kill it. She had
never used the killing curse, even in the war, and she hoped she would never
have to. But stunning alone would not
stop the creature outside.

She nearly dropped
her wand when it threw its body against the door again, causing an ominous
creaking sound to issue from the wood.
It knew that the door was the weakest point of the cabin. She had filled the windows in with
bricks. Wood was much easier to break,
and she doubted it would hold much longer.

Chewing her lip, she
waved her wand and the door was covered over with bricks. Sensing the magic, the wolf yowled, and an
unbearable screeching sound issued from the wood as it raked its claws across
the planks.

�It�it can�t get
through bricks, can it?� Nick whispered.

�Let�s hope not,�
Dawn replied, her wand still at the ready.

�When I said bait I
didn�t mean me!� Lucius fumed.

�Of course you
didn�t,� Severus replied sharply. �But
you always purport to be the choicest morsel, don�t you, Lucius?�

The blond man�s eyes
narrowed dangerously. Hermione had seen
that look before, sometimes behind a mask, sometimes not. It was clear to both her and Lucius that a
new sort of nepotism had begun to direct Snape�s
actions. In this case she didn�t mind,
but Lucius certainly did.

�Are you exacting
revenge for something?� he demanded.
�What did I do this time?�

�No, Lucius, I am
doing nothing of the sort! You said
yourself that Hermione is drunk. What if
she can�t run very well? What if she
falls?�

�Isn�t it funny that
being in a life and death situation sure has a way of sobering you up?� Lucius
seethed.

�Merlin�s
teeth! I would do it myself if I wasn�t the only one
who could sufficiently alter the wards!� Severus growled. Sweat had beaded on his forehead, and his
face was lined in deep concentration as he focused on tweaking the wards.

Lucius said no more,
but he sulked like a petulant child.
Hermione huddled close to Severus, watching the movements of his wand
and his quiet mutterings. A few tense
moments later, his shoulders relaxed and he said softly, �Done.�

The other man glared
at him.

�I swear on Merlin�s
testicles, if I am bitten I will personally chain you to your cauldron and whip
you until you cure lycanthropy,�
Lucius said, an accusatory finger actually touching the end of Snape�s nose.

�That is, if you
don�t eat me during your transformations.�
Leave it to Snarky Snape to make an appearance
at a time like this. �Now get
going. I suspect that the cabins are ill-equipped
to handle werewolf assault.�

�So am I, you know!�
Lucius protested. But he turned and
began to walk away, his wand held tightly in a clenched fist. As Hermione watched him, an uneasy feeling
settled in the pit of her stomach.

�Are you sure this is
right?� she asked.

�Would you rather it be you?� Snape replied.

�Of
course not. I�I just feel like something bad is going to
happen.�

Severus gave her a
sideways glance. Truth be told, he felt
the same way, but he could not even begin to count how many situations had
given him that feeling in his lifetime, and he was still here. Taking a deep breath, he did something he had
not done in a long time. He reached out
his hand and twined it with Hermione�s.

She looked up at him
with anxiety written plainly in her face, but gave his hand a gentle
squeeze. It would be all right. Somehow, it would be all right.

By now I should have
accepted that danger tends to follow me like a hapless admirer. But it was so nice to have a break from these
things�so nice to live without the constant burn of adrenaline in my gut. At one time I thrived on that feeling, but
now I find it quite unbearable.

I am not foolish
enough to tell myself that I am unafraid.
There is no one in the world that doesn�t fear werewolves. Even the wolves themselves fear the dark
abomination they must become. Muggles, who think the creatures are only myths and
legends, find their dreams haunted by a mere possibility.

I envy them now. For them this is not a reality. It is a dream, a macabre vision, a
hallucination. I could die easier if it
was a hallucination that was killing me.

As chaotic as my
thoughts are, I have always had an incredible ability to assume an air of
perfect calm when involved in such things.
It kept me from quailing before Voldemort, the
Wizengamot, Dumbledore, the Dementors
� all highly disconcerting entities, though for different reasons. The Dark Lord often told me that if it was
not for my ostentation, I would be the epitome of Salazar Slytherin�s
elitist ideals. Slytherin
himself lived spartanly, though he did not lack money. He said that possessions bred weakness, and
that the only things a man should consider his own were his body and mind. He was a philosopher of sorts; the wizarding version of Machiavelli*, as Severus is apt to
say. I have not investigated this
Machiavelli fellow, for Severus�s intellectual
assessments are mostly faultless. If I
live through this, though, perhaps I shall.

Severus and Hermione
seem very far away. I tell myself they are
not any safer than me. My brain screams
that they are farther away, and thus more likely to
survive, but still I walk on as if I am strolling in the gardens of my manor.

I can hear the wolf
now. It is growling, keening, vocalizing
in absolute frustration. What I am doing
is madness. Madness, but, like so many
things, it must be done.

Taking a deep breath,
I cup my hands around my mouth and do what Hermione instructed. I let loose my best impersonation of a
werewolf�s call. She said it will come
directly to me once it hears. Directly to me.

I feel sick with fear
as the sound echoes over the moonlit beach.
The angry yowls stop, and a pregnant silence fills the air.

Run, Lucius, run!

But I have forgotten
how difficult it is to run on sand. In less
than a dozen steps, my thigh muscles are burning, my lungs gasping, and panic
growing steadily in my mind. I am too
far away. I didn�t think of the sand. I�m too slow.

Merlin help me, I can
hear its rapid footfalls in the wet sand.
I can hear its snuffling breath, the wet sound of its jowls flapping in
the wind. It can see me, it can smell
me, and it wants to splatter my blood all over the sand.

I fire a stunning
spell over my shoulder. From its yelp, I
know that I managed to hit it. I am just
beginning to think I might make it when a searing pain rips through the sole of
my foot.

I fall, a scream held
back in my throat. With shaking hands I
pry at the shard of glass in my foot. I
know where it is from; the sand around the entrance of the cave-in had been
melted into glass, some of which had splintered apart during the
earthquake. I cannot get it out. It�s in too deep. My foot is numb up to my ankle.

�Lucius!� Severus�s voice is urgent,
breaking with fear.

Time takes on a
curious quality, and I feel myself split into two. That automatic part of me grips my wand in a
palm slippery with blood and fires spell after spell at the ravenous
creature. The other part lets the
numbness travel through my entire body, shutting me off to everything.

I hear myself shout
the killing curse, but either I miss or the creature is unaffected. I can do no more, and in slow motion I see my
fate coming toward me, foaming spittle trailing from its jaws and a hellish
light in its amber eyes.

I hear Hermione�s
high-pitched scream as it pounces on me.
Still that part of me kicks and thrashes and fights,
and I do not feel the animal�s claws gouge my arms and chest. But I smell the blood, and see the blood, and
drown in it�

�SEVERUS! DO SOMETHING! SAVE HIM!!!� Hermione was screaming,
nearly pulling his arm out of the socket.
She had already fired a few spells, but from so far away they either
missed or did nothing but anger the wolf.

Severus was paralyzed
by indecision. From here he could do
nothing, but if he ran to help Lucius he would likely suffer the same
fate. He had let people die before,
because sometimes it was necessary, but those people had never been anyone that
meant much to him. Lucius was his
friend, his foe, his everything and nothing at the same time. He was simply and unequivocally Lucius, and he had been there, for better or worse, from the
beginning. And now there was Hermione,
who in a few short days had wormed her way so far into his heart that he could
do nothing to endanger her.

�Please, Severus!�
Hermione was openly sobbing now. �There
has to be something you can do!�

He turned to look at
her, his face a study in agony, and something caught his eye. A glint at Hermione�s
throat. Before she could even
react, he had torn the necklace from her neck.
He had shouted a spell to melt it, reshaped it into a small, polished
ball, and waved his wand violently, causing it to careen off so fast that the
air whistled around it.

A second later the
wolf was thrown backwards off of Lucius� still form. It yowled horribly,
screaming like no creature should have been able to. It writhed in the sand for a moment and then
stood unsteadily on four legs. With a
wheezing whine, it began to limp away.

Hermione was staring
at Severus open-mouthed. His hands were
shaking badly.

�Your
necklace. Silver,� he whispered hoarsely. �Silver bullet.�

Hermione fought
twenty different emotions at once. Ron
had given her that necklace for Valentine�s Day seventh year. It only took a few seconds for one emotion to
win out. She burst into tears.

Severus took the
tears to be for the situation, and with a grim look, he began to walk toward
Lucius.

�Lucius?�

The voice was soft,
deep, mellifluous.
Severus. Lucius said nothing, but
he opened his eyes slowly. He didn�t
hurt much. Just a dull
throb everywhere.

�Did it bite
me?� The blond man�s voice was distant.

�I don�t know. I can�t�god, your hands�� he trailed
off. He hadn�t meant to say that last
part out loud, but it was as if Lucius did not even hear him.

�Where did it
go? Did you kill it?� Lucius asked. His eyes were becoming glazed and dreamy.

�I don�t know.�

Lucius�s breath suddenly came fast, and a shiver wracked his
body. What little color that had been
left in his face drained away. The pain
was hitting him now, and he was going into shock.

�Fuck,� he
gasped. �Fuck. I�m stupid.
The sand, I forgot it�s slower in the sand�!�

�Lucius, relax. Shut up and relax.� Severus fumbled in his pockets for any potion
that might be useful, but he had none.
He hadn�t brought any with him.
He gritted his teeth, watching blood drip steadily from several of the
wounds that peppered his friend�s upper body.
He knew proper procedure for a werewolf attack. The wounds shouldn�t be closed until they could
be inspected for wolf saliva, unless they were life-threatening. Once they were closed there was no way to
remove the pathogens; they were part of the person forever. But that was absolutely not an option for
Lucius. He would bleed out in less than
an hour.

Lucius was
mumbling. A thin sheen of cold sweat
glistened on his forehead.

�The sand�le sable�le
verre��

�Lucius, I have to
close your wounds. I have to get you to
Catherine while the wolf is gone.�

�No�no�leave me�je ne veux
pas etre un loup��

�You have a son and a
girlfriend, you great fool,� Severus said gently. �They would rather have you alive and on Wolfsbane than dead.�

�Nooo�I
don�t want to be�I am already�un fardeau��

Shaking his head,
Severus reached for the chunk of glass that was still embedded in the other
man�s foot. If Lucius was unconscious,
the thing that the Muggles referred to as �implied
consent� was applicable. Severus took a
firm hold on the edge of the glass, and with a substantial jerk, attempted to
remove it.

At first it would not
budge, and Lucius groaned in pain.
Severus cringed, thinking that maybe it was embedded in his bone. But a second later his flesh yielded, and the
glass arrowhead slipped out slowly, bringing with it a fresh gush of
blood. Before it had cleared his skin
Lucius passed out from the pain. Upon
examining the shard, Severus saw why; the end was actually curved, and in
pulling it out he had probably done more damage. Ah well, it was nothing a good mediwitch or wizard couldn�t put right, and now Lucius
could not moan to him about wanting to die.

Taking a breath, he
aimed his wand at the worst of Lucius�s
injuries. He was not much of a healer,
but he didn�t want to risk moving Lucius like this. However, just as he was about to speak the
spell, he felt a curious tug in his gut.

A moment later he was
kneeling on cool marble, his wand wavering over nothing.

Hermione�s tears were
staunched only by the complete and total shock of suddenly being somewhere
else. The beach was gone, and in her
ears the deafening symphony of cicadas and crickets and katydids was like some
kind of torture.

She sank to her
knees, an irrational fear welling up inside her. It was dark, though the moon provided just
enough light to define the heaps of angled stone all around her. The dirt was hard and packed beneath her
knees.

�Severus!!!�

The insects went
quiet for a moment. Her voice did not
sound like her own when she screamed. It
sounded hysterical, panicked, full of grief. A tentative cricket chirped, and a moment later
a thousand others joined in, starting the whole cacophony over again.

Doubling over, she
took several quick, deep breaths. She
had to compose herself. If she lost it
now, she would never find out what had happened, or where she was, for that
matter.

Several minutes
later, she felt calm enough to stand.
She did so, leaning on a nearby chunk of rock to help her to her
feet. The rock looked old and
weather-beaten, its porous surface pockmarked and scattered with fragments of
seashells. She was close to the ocean,
then.

Of course she was
close to the ocean. No part of Greece was more than 85 miles from the ocean. That was assuming she was still in Greece�

She looked more
closely at the rock. It was rounded;
frowning, she ran a hand over its side.
It dipped up and down in a mountain and valley pattern. A segment of a column,
then.

These were
ruins. How in the hell had she wound up
on the site of some ancient ruin? Where
the hell was she? What was going on?

Exhaling through her
teeth, Hermione once again struggled for composure. At least for the moment she was safe; the
site appeared completely deserted, aside from her. Nonetheless, she raised her wand, for caution
could not hurt.

Her feet crunched in
the dry, packed earth as she walked. Now
that her eyes had adjusted to the frail light, she could see chunks of columns
arranged in perfect rows. It was as if
they were waiting for someone to put them back together.

As she walked down
the dirt path, she looked to her right.
There was a massive foundation there, as long as a quidditch
field and raised perhaps four feet off the
ground. The area around it was littered
with great chunks of rock. It had been a
great structure once, but now it was only rubble.

To her left there was
a similar structure, though not as large.
This one, however, still had one piece standing. A large, cracked column jutted proudly out of
the foundation, its top wide and flat to support a roof that was no longer
there. It was perhaps forty feet tall,
at least three times as wide as her, and though it was rough and chipped, it
was beautiful.

�So, I have you at
last, child.�

The voice was strong,
authoritative, sultry, and undeniably female.
Hermione jumped badly, turning in a circle with her wand held
protectively in front of her. The voice
chuckled at her actions.

�Who are you? Show yourself!� Hermione demanded, her back straightening as her trademark courage kicked
in. She hated being toyed with, and
would simply not take it right now.

�I�m right here,
silly girl.� The voice was behind her,
and she spun rapidly, ready to fire a spell if necessary. For the umpteenth time that night, her mouth
fell open in confusion and shock. There
was a woman where there had been no one before, casually leaning against the gigantic
column. She was clad in red and white,
and her hair flowed in brown corkscrews from the top of her proud head.

�Who are you? What is this place?� Hermione asked, lowering her wand
slightly. The woman did not seem to be
armed, but there was an aura of power about her.

�This place,� the
woman said imperiously, �is Olympia. I have many names, but here they call me Hera.� She examined
her nails as if this admission was just a mundane fact. Then she stepped forward, right off the edge
of the temple�s foundation. Hermione
cringed, thinking she would fall, but she merely drifted down to the ground
like a feather in a breeze. �My fool of
a husband wanted to see poor Lilith destroy you. I don�t know why I put up with him,� she said
with a roll of her large brown eyes.
�But women have loved fools since the beginning of time, have they not?�

A loud pounding woke
Draco, and, groaning, he rolled over and hoped whoever was banging on his door
would go away. But they did not; they
pounded again, louder and more insistently.
Cracking one eye open, he concluded that it could not be much later than
six or seven in the morning.

Groggily he rose and
sauntered toward the door. Yawning, he
deactivated the wards and waved the door open.
He was greeted by the sight of Dawn and the head excavator, Cyrus. Just behind them, the two Muggle men stood,
looking ashen and exhausted.

�Do you know where
your father is?� Dawn asked.

Blinking blearily
against the morning light, Draco answered, �No.
Should I?�

Cyrus eyed him
closely.

�Did you sleep
through it?�

�Sleep through what?�

Dawn sighed and Cyrus
looked scandalized.

�There was a werewolf
attack last night,� she said. �You must
have slept right through it.�

�I was tired,� Draco
shrugged. �Is everyone all right?�

�That�s why we were
asking about your father. He and your
other companions weren�t able to make it to the cover of the cabins before the
wolf attacked. We can�t find them anywhere
this morning,� Cyrus said bluntly.

Draco�s mouth worked.

�I�I�m sure they just
hid out somewhere.�

Cyrus shrugged.

�We were hoping you
would know something.�

Draco swallowed. This was surreal.

�Let me get dressed,
and I�ll try to find them.�

It was Joeri who found the blood spots in the sand. He sent up a shower of red sparks, and nearly
everyone came running, Draco and Dawn in the lead. Dawn looked away when she saw the vibrant red
splashes. Draco�s
jaw tightened, but he forced himself to look.
It was only blood. Blood didn�t
always mean the victim was dead.

�There is more over
there,� Joeri said gravely, gesturing toward the
opening of the school.

�Whose is it, then?� Cyrus asked, sounding resigned. Joeri waved his
wand, and a faint light glowed from the outline of the largest stain. A small cloud of red mist rose from it and
slowly formed itself into a picture.
There was no denying, once it was finished, that it had formed a rough
portrait of Lucius Malfoy.

Dawn crouched down
and put her hands over her face.

�It�s just
blood. No body. He could be fine,� Draco said, shaken.

�We should test the
other blood,� Joeri said quietly. �Perhaps it will afford us a clue.�

�It seems to be a
trail,� Dharvish said from a few feet away. He was following the small puddles of
blood. �It looks like it goes down into
the school.�

�Perhaps the three of
them hid in there?� Draco said, sounding hopeful.

�If they did, why
haven�t they come out?� Dawn asked flatly.
�It�s two hours past sunrise.�

�They may not be able
to get out if they are injured,� Cyrus said.
�Dharvish, test the blood.�

The Indian wizard
waved his wand as Joeri had, but this time the
picture was not of anyone they recognized.

�That�s not Hermione,
and definitely not Snape,� Draco said, shaking his head. �I don�t know who that is.�

�Perhaps it is the
werewolf,� Essah said.

�Whoever it is, she�s
down there and she�s injured. If we want
answers we better get moving,� Cyrus said.

The trail of blood
led them deep into the school, into dark corridors they had not yet
explored. Everything seemed stable, but
they were all nervous anyway.

�What if we come to
more security spells?� Joeri asked Cyrus softly. �Lucius is not with us.�

Cyrus cast a sideways
glance at Draco. His face was blank, and
the muscles of his jaw twitched every now and then.

�Perhaps his son will
be able to open them, as well.�

But they did not come
to any more identification spells. The
trail stopped just inside a large classroom.
Upon stepping inside, they gazed around in wonder.

�Magical creatures,�
someone said softly. The walls of the
massive, high-ceilinged room were lined with glass cases. Inside the cases were all types of magical
creatures. Some were just models, but
others were real: the head of a basilisk, its eye sockets empty, a winged
dragon no bigger than a dog with shimmering blue scales and a white underbelly,
preserved fairies hanging from strings, and a particularly large and ugly doxy,
its fangs bared.

Far on the opposite
side of the room, one case was empty. A girl
lay still beneath it, one hand resting limply on the floor of the glass
case. A small pool of blood had formed
around her prone figure.

Cyrus knelt down
beside her and hesitantly reached for her outstretched hand. He felt for a pulse, and then looked at the
small label her fingers had been covering.
It was in antiquated Greek, but he could still read it.

�Werewolf,� he said
softly.

Translations:

Le sable � the sand

Le verre
� the glass

Je ne veux
pas etre un loup � I don�t want to be a wolf

Un fardeau � a burden

*A basic comparison of
Salazar Slytherin to Machiavelli: �In Chapter 18,
perhaps the most controversial section of The Prince, Machiavelli argues that
the prince should know how to be deceitful when it suits his purpose. When the
prince needs to be deceitful, though, he must not appear that way. Indeed he
must always exhibit five virtues in particular: mercy, honesty, humaneness,
uprightness, and religiousness.� Sound
familiar?

And so the story goes into
double figures chapter-wise (10) and triple figures page-wise (101). I did update around the end of July, and for
some reason a lot of people missed that chapter. It is rather important as a set-up for this
chapter, so if you�re confused or just don�t remember what happened, go have a
look at Chapter 9. Again, I�d like to
apologize for how long it takes me to update, but I just can�t seem to churn
out chapters any quicker. Thanks to all
my readers and especially those who review for sticking with me. I�m going to try to post some pictures of Greece on my blog; the link will
be in my profile. Enjoy, and let me know
what you think.
- 9
- 10
- 11
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Amphitrite