Out of Time

Chapter 40

And I have known the arms already, known them all—
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
(But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!)

- The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, T.S. Eliot

Her throat won't work. She can't swallow or scream, and her hands brace against the door frame, refusing to cooperate. Draco smacks into her back, swearing, and his momentum pushes her forward and into the room.

Harry's on the ground with his hands outstretched, as if warding off an attacker. But it's not a woman standing over him. It's a snake, a massive snake, the snake, her brain jibbers. But it's bigger than she is! How can it be bigger than she is? How did it get here? Where did it come from? Had it been upstairs this whole time? Hermione scrambles backwards, finding a solid wall in the form of Draco's chest, and folds into him.

He's releasing a solid string of low curses, and not the magical kind. The snake swivels its head and Hermione's terror releases a single squeak. Harry takes the opportunity to push himself to the side along the floor and Hermione sees his wand just past his outstretched fingers. The tip is lit and he must have been using it to see before he dropped it - in fright or in defence, she can't be sure.

"Get out of here," he rasps, and she knows Draco's seconds away from following that order.

"No!" she shrieks, regaining sense (or possibly taking leave of it altogether). This is the snake and they have a chance here, a chance to do something big, if she can only... The bag is still in one hand and she reaches deep inside without looking.

Of course it's upside down. Of course it bloody is. Of course the first thing her fingers touch is the leather point of the scabbard covering the tip of the blade, and she has to somehow finagle it rightside up before she can grasp the hilt.

As if the snake can sense what she's going for, it abandons Harry, who successfully lunges for his wand. He fires some random hex at it, one that bounces off its scales.

It ignores him utterly, advancing on Hermione, who finds herself once more rooted to the spot under its malevolent (and frighteningly sentient) gaze. Its head bobs back and forth, as if it's playing with her. It's absurd but Hermione feels like the cobra bewitched by a snake charmer with his magical flute, not the other way around.

"Whatever it is you're trying to do in there," Draco grits out, "I suggest you do it."

The snake opens its mouth and Draco's curse lands at the back of its pink throat. It recoils with a snarling hiss, a guttural sound from somewhere deep in its gullet. That makes Hermione think of how snakes can swallow things fifteen times their own size and oh, gods, it's staring right at her. Her muscles don't want to work when it looks at her.

The combined spells from Draco and Harry force it to slither beneath the bed to shield most of its body and Hermione takes this brief reprieve to fumble in the bag. For something she worked so hard to expand the interior of, the sodding sword keeps getting caught on myriad other clutter when she tries to get the hilt from the bottom.

"Let's go!" Draco bellows. "Just apparate back to that beach!"

This is sound advice but Draco doesn't understand what's at stake. As if it knows what Harry's trying to do, its tail whips out from beneath the bedframe and slaps his wand from his hand. It goes clattering across the floor again, just as Draco sends out the biggest blasting confringo Hermione's ever seen in an enclosed space. The back wall blows outward, letting in the storm. She doesn't feel the cold but the wind could be a problem.