A Potter Secret

Trying to Kill Nagini

As Harry arrives at the doors to the Great Hall, he finds Ron and Hermione there. "The snake! We've got to kill the snake!" Harry insists.

Neville, only a few yards off, sword in hand, overhears. As his eyes shift to Voldemort and Nagini. "Harry! Look out!" Neville cries.

Harry wheels, sees Voldemort drawing a bead on him. As Harry begins to raise his wand, Neville steps between, brandishing the sword just as Voldemort's wand blazes and Neville's world explodes. Taking the full brunt of it all, Neville grimaces, watching as Voldemort's spell, like a current of electricity, races up the sword's blade to the hilt and pitches off his feet and fifty feet back into the Great Hall. Harry exchanges a glance with Ron and Hermione. Their faces say it all, no one could have survived that. The Entrance Hall explodes with counter-fire as members of the Order, students and staff return fire. Voldemort flicks his wand, the air prickling with disturbance as he summons a shield of air insulating himself from attack. As he sweeps forward, he responds with a devastating series of spells and the Entrance Hall quakes. Harry turns and dashes up the stairs, picking his way through the rubble and limp bodies strewn upon the steps, attempting to draw Voldemort, and Nagini, away from the others. It works. "Nagini! With me!" Voldemort cries. Voldemort, his cloak swirling like water, the great snake at his heel, strides toward the stairs and fires. Harry flinches as shards of marble rain down upon him. Wheeling, he fires back. Voldemort parries Harry's spells with frightening ease, mounting the steps and firing again and again. Eyes darting frantically, Harry blocks the spells with a mixture of skill, instinct and pure luck. He stumbles back, firing wildly. One of his spells skitters down the steps and strikes Nagini. The snake hisses, unharmed but angry. "Leave her!"

Voldemort's eyes glitter with rage, as if he himself had been struck by the spell. Harry fires again, purposely aiming for the snake this time. Voldemort counters with palpable fury, spells caroming madly up and down the staircase. Harry shields his eyes briefly, then looks down and sees a cloud of smoke hanging over the stairs from Voldemort's spells, but Voldemort himself is gone. Harry glances about frantically, then whoosh! The hairs on the back of Harry's neck rise. He turns. Voldemort materializes at the top of the stairs, fires a ribbon of fire at him. Harry counters it, but it is so powerful he can't deflect it. He stands, connected to Voldemort by the rippling ribbon of fire. He stumbles back, the muscles in his forearm twitching in pain. He hears a heavy rolling sound, like meat slapping a marble table and looks over his shoulder, downwards. Nagini is undulating upward, over the steps, toward Harry. As the snake hisses an oddly similar sound escapes Voldemort's lips as he pushes his advantage. The ribboning flames grow more intense, begin to lick the flesh of Harry's wand hand. Harry glances once more at Nagini who draws closer, then back at Voldemort, who stares fiercely at Harry, willing the flames down the ribbon of light toward Harry. Harry winces as the flames singe the hair on his knuckles. Then, summoning every bit of strength he's got, Harry breaks the spell, staggering away, as the ribbon of light shoots upward and the ceiling above gives way, raining debris onto Nagini. "I said LEAVE HER!" Voldemort demands.

Harry peers down at the wreckage below, then watches Nagini slither free, her thick braids oozing with lacerations, but otherwise unharmed. Woosh! Harry turns and Voldemort vanishes again, only to reappear seconds later on Harry's blind side. Harry wheels and, in a sweeping motion, sends a cluster of debris hurling at Voldemort. Instantly, Voldemort reaches out his hand and the debris grows smaller as it flies toward him, until, as it reaches his hand, it appears to vanish altogether. Then he turns his palm upward. Sand runs between his fingers to the floor. Harry stands watching, stunned. His eyes meet Voldemort's. Voldemort's eyes narrow eerily, in a most unhuman way, and he hisses. Harry stumbles back, freaked out, when. "Now, my sweet. Now," Voldemort hisses in parseltongue.

Harry turns, sees Nagini, only yards away, rising to strike. He fires instinctively, then dashes for the balustrade and leaps into the air falling and falling until he lands, on the stone floor below, awkwardly, painfully. He glances up, sees Voldemort's face. Instantly, Voldemort flicks his wand and the stone floor around Harry explodes, the surface dancing like water. He turns, glances around desperately, then spies a door. Without thinking, he pelts towards it and through, into a corridor teeming with smoke. In the distance, a patch of light drifts oddly in the swirling mist, glowing weakly, then is swallowed by the smoke. Far off screams, the cries of battle, hang in the air, hollow and distant. Harry moves through the mist, feeling his way. The walls shimmer like skin on his periphery, barely discernible, melting, lost in shadow. A low beating rises in Harry's ears, rapid at first then growing slower and slower as it increases in volume and all ambient sound drifts away, revealing the low beating to be the thrumming of Harry's heart.

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Voldemort sweeps down to the lower landing and pauses, eyeing the door ahead. He glances up, in the direction of Nagini, conflicted. "Nagini!" Voldemort calls. He waits, sees the giant snake begin to wend its way down. Then passes through the door.

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Hagrid sets Isabella on a small cot by Madam Pomphrey. She looks her over before smiling. "She- she's alive," Madam Pomphrey smiles. "Barely, but she survived Voldemort's killing curse." Madam Pomphrey sets to work immediately.

Hagrid bursts into happy tears. "Jus' like 'er broder."

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Nagini moves flowing like water ever downward when- thwack! A bit of rubble bounces off her slithering tail. She hisses, coiling in on herself, blunt head darting about warily.

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Hermione stands, watching. Rearing back, she hurls another sharp fragment. As the fragment hits its mark, Nagini strikes blindly, furious, then spies Hermione. Instantly she begins to slither toward her. As Hermione stands her ground, we dolly left and reveal Ron, clutching a basilisk fang in his fist.

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Harry pushes himself forward, blindly, silently. He squints. Up ahead, dark coils of impossibly thick smoke corkscrew from the stone floor. Whoosh! Harry wheels, watches a figure materialize back at the doorway. The smoke shifts, revealing Voldemort. He raises his wand, pointing it directly at Harry as the smoke thickens once again, concealing him. Seconds later a ribbon of fire erupts through the mist, stitching its way through the smoke towards Harry. Harry watches, transfixed for a moment, then flings himself aside, narrowly eluding the sizzling ribbon of fire. Whoosh! Voldemort vanishes, becoming one with the smoke, and Harry feels a rush of air rocket past him. He spins, blindly, and watches a disturbance of smoke several yards. Whoosh! The air trembles with disturbance once more, but violently this time, the smoke whirling crazily up and down the corridor. Harry spins in a circle, wand raised, paranoid. A second ribbon of fire comes from the blackness narrowly missing Harry. Harry staggers on, tripping over the bodies that litter the stone floor, desperately gulping for air as the smoke grows thicker, choking him, a rag doll in the eye of a tornado, the light ahead blooming more brilliantly as he rushes on, blinding him as his heart thrums madly and Voldemort's voice rises in his ears. "Die! Die!" Voldemort cries. Voldemort's face flickers before him briefly, insanely, and Harry screams, pitching himself forward and then he is in the light, passing through, beyond the archway.

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On a shattered staircase, the sound of Voldemort, in pursuit, thrumming in his ears as he races desperately on before staggering out onto the battlement, gulping air. He stops, looks around. Realizes he is trapped. He turns as Voldemort emerges, begins to raise his wand but Too late. Voldemort's spells blast him off his feet.

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Nagini ribbons forth rapidly, flowing effortlessly through the rubble that obstructs her path. Suddenly, up ahead, Hermione comes into view, wand extended. She fires. Nagini hisses, continuing on. Hermione lowers her wand, standing perfectly still as Ron pelts into view, fang in hand. He lifts the tusk when, Nagini spies him and, wicked fast, uncoils her tail, knocking the fang from his hand. He watches it clatter down the stone steps, then looks back at the great snake. It begins to move toward him.

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