ꜱᴇʀᴘᴇɴᴛɪɴᴇ ꜱᴇʀɪᴇꜱ | ᴛᴏᴍɪᴏɴᴇ

Serpentine, ch. 26

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Harmony and Voldemort stood in the middle of the lesson hall facing each other. Their bodies were about ten centimeters apart, and Harmony could barely contain her fiery nerves at both his nearness and the spell she was about to learn. Her body quivered where it stood. For the life of her, she couldn't be still.

Master must have sensed her fear, for he said, "There's only one thing that can keep you from learning this spell, and that is yourself. Your fear of what you can or cannot do will keep you from becoming greater and more powerful than you already are."

"Aren't you ever afraid of what you're capable of?" she asked him on impulse, and then shut her mouth tight. She wasn't quite sure what she'd meant when she'd asked it. She was certain her Master wasn't afraid of anything. But it seemed logical that if he was capable of striking so much fear in others, then he may also frighten himself.

Voldemort gaped at her a moment, then quickly bit his lip in agitated contemplation. He took a few steps away from her as though she was a ticking bomb and he wanted to be a safe distance away. His lack of an answer set off alarms in her mind, and she wondered at how close to the truth she actually was.

"The Cascadia, or in this case the Cascadia Maxima, spell requires every particle of want in your body," he told her. "It will produce directly from your core, and emit in sudden bursts of light."

"What does it look like, exactly?" she asked.

"I conjured one just this last week," he said. "Remember? When we were retrieving the Vanishing cabinet? When the Aurors came, I conjured a Cascadia."

"You mean the spell that you intended to shield me as well?" she asked.

"Precisely."

Harmony remembered the look on his face when he had failed to protect her back at Knockturn Alley. She hated bringing disappointment onto herself, but mostly she hated that weakness she felt where he was concerned. It brought this little nagging feeling at the back of her mind, and it told her the full honest truth that she was too afraid—too cowardly to admit: what she really hated was to disappoint him.

"But that was only a Cascadia," he explained. "A Cascadia Maxima is powerful enough to awaken and expand the magic inside your blood."

"If you're able to survive it," Harmony added.

Voldemort nodded grimly, and said, "Yes, if you survive. Let us begin."

Master ran Harmony through several exercises designed to calm and focus her mind, bringing her into a sort of hypnotic state. Harmony stood before him feeling as though she were floating; her eyes were closed and she sensed nothing but the sound of his voice. It felt heavy like velvet as it flowed through her mind, loud and precise as he spoke.

"I want you to imagine," he said as he stepped up behind her, "that hundreds of Aurors are running toward you, wands raised. You can't fight all of them off one at a time—so get rid of them all at once."

"How?" she asked feebly. She was consciously aware that his chest was pressing into her back.

"Sense your whole body swelling as if it is being filled with electrical energy, right here," he said as his hands reached around on each side to touch her belly. "Fill yourself up until you can feel the energy snapping and crackling inside you irrepressibly."

"I can see them coming," Harmony whispered. "They're surrounding me, but I don't—I can't stop them!"

"Yes you can," Master's voice said right into her ear; his breath tickled her skin. "Force your power to surge through your core. You can feel it right here, just use it." His hand pushed her abdomen again, a little more forcefully this time.