The Mudblood

Chapter 127 : Year 6

"We Had No Choice" by https://www.quotev.com/27886777

When my eyes found light once again, I expected to be in some sort of afterlife, hopefully with Fred by my side, praising me for the prank that I'd done in his honor. Instead, when my vision finally focused, I was alarmed by the sight of a snake's head in my face, its wide eyes only centimeters from my own. My first instinct was to scream, but I could only gawk as my brain registered the identity of this snake: Nagini, Voldemort's pet. Was I alive, or had Nagini died in battle? Hell did seem like the right destination for me after death. If Harry defeated him, I'd have to search for Voldemort and give him a piece of my mind—

"She's barely even reacting."

"She must have hit her head pretty hard when she fell."

Nagini's head retreated, and I realized that it was just that: Nagini's head had been severed from her body, and Ryan Harper was holding it in his hand like a puppet.

"What the hell!" I exclaimed, scrambling to sit up straight as I stared at the snake head. Harper seemed undisturbed by the grossness of it. He and Anderson were too busy giggling over my reaction to even address how nasty it was.

"How is it that she's more scared of a dead snake than a live one?" Anderson quipped.

"Where did you get that?"

"Longbottom beheaded the snake," Harper explained, admiring it. "We were hoping to scare you into speaking Parseltongue when you woke."

"H-How did you know I speak Parseltongue?"

"Melody told me last year." Harper set down Nagini's head on the table beside my white hospital wing bed, which he sat on the right of. It seemed that the injured had been transported here from the Great Hall because the room was teeming with patients and healers. Madam Pomfrey looked like she hadn't slept in days, but she seemed to be doing a decent job, considering no one was screaming or groaning.

I didn't recognize the people in the beds on either side of me, but Anderson was perched in a chair on my left, white bandages around his right hand and little Smellfoy resting on his shoulder, while Ashley was at the foot of my bed, bouncing with excitement.

"You're alive!" she enthused, clapping her hands. "We were so afraid that you died."

"Am I—" My hands flew to my neck, feeling for the incisions of vampire fangs. Anderson had them on his throat, two red dots, but I couldn't feel anything on mine. "Am I a vampire?"

"Nah, after you went limp, the vampire was about to bite you when Malfoy tackled him," Anderson informed me. "We enjoyed watching them brawl for a bit until Harmony finally used Melody's spell to kill the vampire. Malfoy got a few needles stuck in his skin. Sucks you missed it. It was hysterical."

I pressed my lips together, unsure I wanted to know the answers to any of the questions pressing on my brain. "I'm...assuming Voldemort's dead? Or imprisoned, at least? Otherwise we'd all be dead... Are we dead?"

"You-Know-Who's dead," Harper assured me, his jesting mood fizzling as somberness overcame his tone. "Your brother killed him. We didn't get to see it because you fainted."

"Because I hit my head when the vampire knocked me down?" I clarified.

The three of them exchanged uneasy looks, but Harper spoke again before I could explode.

"Harmony thinks you fainted because of the slave mark. You-Know-Who died right around when you passed out, so she said she thinks that your brain couldn't handle his death. Something about how the slave mark magic was so intertwined with your mind that it just shut down... At least you're not a slave anymore. The mark's gone."