Hogwarts Legacy: The Price of Power

The Heir of Slytherin

Dracaena could hear it clearly now, the heavy scraping of scales over the path below, the thick, winding muscle of a serpentine body slithering closer to the tree in which they hid. Behind her, Ominis buried his face in her shoulder, his arms around her middle as Sebastian held onto her, his hand at the back of her head, keeping her face pressed into his chest, his own turned into her hair. Each of them shuddered as a low chorus of hissing rose up to them as the gorgon made its way around the base of the tree, her voice louder than the rest, distinct in the gravelly tone of her snarls.

Ominis shifted, his arm raising, tracing his wand around as below them the gorgon began to move away, the slow scraping fading, growing fainter, eventually vanishing from their hearing altogether, and they finally dared to breathe.

"I... I should have known," Ominis managed, his voice barely a whisper. "I could hear her, plain as day, saying how she was hunting intruders, of all things! And the other voices, gorgons have snakes for hair, why didn't I figure it out?"

"A gorgon..." Dracaena kept her face pressed to Sebastian's chest. "Bassy... can't they turn people to stone by looking at them?"

"Only if you meet their gaze," he said. He was shivering. "No fucking wonder that statue back there looked so real, it was real. A real person, turned to stone."

They shuddered.

"I... think it might be best if you don't use lumos anymore," Ominis said. "I-it won't make any difference to me, but you two? The less chance you have of making eye contact with it the better. I won't stand for losing either of you."

"Even if we don't look at it, it's got a dirty great bow on its back," Sebastian muttered. "It'd shoot us as soon as it sees us. We can't let it find us."

"So we're meant to just go blundering around in the dark?" Dracaena whispered. "We'll just end up running into it anyway!"

"We won't," Ominis said, his voice a little firmer now, though still quiet. "I'll lead us, I can navigate perfectly well. We'll need to move quickly, but above all else, stay quiet. Those snakes on her head wouldn't shut up, I'll hear her coming long before she catches up to us. We just need to be careful."

"If you say so," Dracaena said, dubiously. Ominis gave a soft, slightly forced laugh.

"It's almost like you don't trust me, dove."

"I trust you, but we've got a fucking snake woman thing that can either snipe us or turn us to stone to worry about," she said, turning away from Sebastian at last. She gulped, squinting through the gloom. "Is it safe to climb down?"

"For now," Ominis said. "Let's not hang around."

They eased themselves out of the tree, dropping down one by one and pausing, frozen, listening hard for any sound. Once they were ready, she took Sebastian and Ominis' hands, and Ominis took the lead, keeping them to the left-hand wall, their pace slow and steady, their steps as silent as they could make them.

They came across more statues as they went, each of them cowering, or seemingly caught by surprise. Some had a few arrows sticking out of their bodies, and others curled in a ball, their eyes just visible behind the fingers clamped over their faces. Each twisted expression made Dracaena shiver and flinch, especially as she couldn't see them until she was virtually on top of them, their ghostly faces springing up from the darkness. The first few times, both she and Sebastian narrowly avoided shouting in alarm, and Ominis took to warning them if their was one in their path.

Dracaena could barely see a foot in front of her, and had to keep glancing up at the bright sky above for reassurance that she wasn't going blind herself.