Ascension 22

“What in the name of Merlin i-”

“Shhh”, Hermione clamped her fingers over Ron’s mouth as they stepped inside the Cerberus’ room, and Neville thought that she was trying to set the ginger on fire with her eyes alone as she glared at him. Pointing at the drooling, sleeping heads of the titanic creature, she brought her fingers to her lips, her quiet voice brushing against his ears “You will wake him up if you speak so loudly!”

Casting a silencing charm on their feet with a muttered silencio, he walked towards the Cerberus, his eyes flicking over to the giant harp placed by the window. The moonlight glinted off its frame, the thin strings barely visible as a soft melody played upon it. Closing his eyes for a moment as he felt his shoes sink into what he assumed was a lot of Cerberus slobber, Neville sighed and looked at the giant beast. Thankfully, it seemed that Professor Snape had possessed the sense to secure his escape too, as the creature’s paw was nowhere near the trap door. Walking over to the dark hole, he kneeled down and looked down into the blackness.

“So, what is the room below us?” Hermione asked as she came by his side, her wand lighting up with a quiet mumble of lumos as she kneeled at his left. She lowered her wand into the trap door, and Neville sighed as, despite the two illumination charms, nothing was revealed about the floor below. “I can’t see anything!”

“Uh gu-”

“Shut up for a moment Ron!” she hissed as she leaned down even further into the dark, her voice echoing out from the hole, “Can’t you see we are trying to work here?! Honestly, stop shouting so loudly! You will wake the Cerbe-”

Neville turned out her words as he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, and Ron’s terrified whimper flew over his ears. A bestial growl followed the sound a moment later, and he felt his stomach sink as the blood drained from his face. Gulping loudly as he felt Ron stumble besides him, Neville gripped the edge of the trap door tightly and looked at the harp in front of him, feeling something hit the floor behind him. Hermione also seemed to realize something was wrong at the same time as she whimpered, and he saw her hand tremble as she brought her wand out of the darkness, raising it up as the light on its end grew brighter.

In the distorted reflection of the harp’s moonlit surface, Neville saw his rapidly growing fear materialize as the Cerberus loomed just behind him, two of its crimson eyes staring down at him. All the thoughts of keeping calm and thinking of a solution fled his brain as he heard its drool splatter on the ground, the low rumbling growl of the XXX class creature absolutely rattling his bones and deafening his ears to everything.

An instant later, Hermione screamed loudly, and right after her, both he and Ron screamed as the Cerberus snarled loudly. Turning around even as he scrambled towards the hole, Neville watched the large canine snaps its jaws menacingly in their direction as it slowly prowled towards them. Finally, as if by magic, the sound of its paws and long claws hitting the stone floor became audible to him as every other thing in the room seemed to fade away for him. He saw the furious crimson eyes of the monstrous dog zero in on him, as well as the dagger-like white fangs it possessed shine with the drool that was dripping from its maws. Its claws tapped on the stone one by one, the Cerberus’ beastly snarls reverberating through his body as he scrambled backward. His eyes snapped to the right head as it barked loudly, the loud sound almost deafening him to the sound of Ron screaming his way down into the room below them. A moment later, he heard Hermione shriek loudly as she too jumped into the opening, and he found himself following right after her as the Cerberus lunged forwards. Shouting loudly than he had ever done in his life, Neville watched the fangs as big as his forearm close less than an inch away from his legs as he fell through the hole, the crimson eyes of the growling beast staring into his own as a drop of its drool splattered on his face.

Screaming his throat raw as he fell through the darkness for what felt like forever, Neville blinked as he landed on something soft.  Besides him, Ron groaned as their wands stopped emitting the light an eyeblink later, and he saw the trap door above them close at the same time, making everything go dark around him. Something crawled over his neck, and he shuddered as goosebumps rose over his whole body, the thing moving over his chest before its touch left his body.

“Where are we?” Hermione grunted from somewhere to his front, her wand once again re-lightning with a soft white glow as she sat up. Squeezing his eyes shut for a second at the sudden brightness that invaded his vision, Neville groaned as he too sat up, blindly reaching out with his hand for his holly and phoenix feather wand, “Is this the secon-WHAT WAS THAT?!”

“What was what? Ron mumbled, whirling around wildly as he too lit his wandtip up, and Neville jumped sidewards as he felt something move over his fingers, “Is there an animal of some kind here too?! And where is my wand?!”

“I think we are in a snakepit!” she whispered feverishly, her voice high pitched and scared beyond anything Neville had ever heard from the girl. But even as he felt the thing in the darkness move over his legs, he realised something was wrong. While the thing was definitely moving over their robes and around them like a serpent, it felt too light and thin to be one. Right as the thought entered his brain, Ron screamed loudly, followed a moment later by Hermione’s shrill shriek, “Someth-mmph!”

Alarmed by the sudden sight of something whipping across Hermione’s face and dragging her down, Neville himself was taken by surprise a belt-like thing whipped across his chest and pulled him down. Realizing what the Professors had dropped in this pit as he saw a green vine drape itself over Hermione’s flailing, screaming body, he gasped.

“It's Devil’s Snare!” he shouted, stilling his body as instantly as he could with the carnivorous vine moving all over him from every direction. Remembering everything he could about the strangler, Neville looked at Hermione and Ron desperately, since with his wand out of his reach, they were the only ones who had to save them all, “Stop moving you too! It will get tighter and stronger the more you move! I can’t reach my wand from here Hermione, Ron, so you are the ones who have to save us! Cast the Incendio or a Lumos Maxima as soon as you can before it strangles us to death!”

“I c-ca-can’t!” Hermione wheezed out, her choking gasp making his blood run cold as she hacked and coughed a moment later. Out of the corner of his eyes and in the slowly dimming light of her wand, he saw the vines of the Devil’s Snare tug at her wrists and arms, as well as how it was slowly wrapping itself around her face. Slowly loosening her muscles and forcing her body to stay still, she bit her lip to stop her whimpers as the vines of the man-eating plant crawled across her body, sending goosebumps all over her. “I-it is wrapped around my wand too…If I move even a little, it might snap it off or once again start strangling me. This one isn’t even moving away like the ones in the Greenhouse did! And I ca-can’t bre-breathe prop-akh!”

“Professor Sprout must have used the older ones,” his eyes widened, looking down at the vines that had stilled completely over his chest and hands. “But you both are the ones who have to somehow do it! We can’t stay here all night long and hope for someone to rescue us and stop Snape at the same time! If we are to stop him from bringing back Voldemort, we need to get out of this trap right now! We need only a moment of brightness to escape from these Ron, cast a lumos or an incendio!”

“Lumos!” Hermione’s voice echoed in the chamber, and Neville saw the slowly fading ball of light at the tip of her wand grow suddenly into a bright sphere. WIncing a little as he felt the pain in his eyes, he gasped as the stilled vines on his neck and shoulders immediately went active at his movement. Having barely gone dormant in the few moments he had kept himself still, the Snare had no problem in twisting and turning about his neck in an instant, beginning to choke his body with fervor. Feeling the pressure on his throat and arms, Neville found himself unable to keep still like he had managed to do a minute ago, and as a result, the vines got tighter still upon his body.

As his breath began to leave his body, Neville gasped, feeling the ache in his chest from the lack of breath. His vision began to dim despite the light emitting from Hermione’s wand—which was somehow not scaring the photosensitive plant away from them, and his eyelids flickered shut as he slowly lost the feeling in his fingertips.

Ron’s eyes went wide as he saw all this happening, and his grip on his wand tightened. Incendio was a spell he had never managed to cast despite Neville showing it to him a few weeks ago. A barely passable Ignisarvus was all he could do, and by now he knew that the strange Devil’s Snare was probably not going to be fazed by the spell at all. Growling a little as he saw the light from Hermione’s wand flicker once, he cursed mentally. “Ignisarvus,” he muttered under his breath, taking care not to move his neck even by a little as he stared at the vines crawling over the girl lying a few feet away from him. He felt the heat on his fingers as the flame manifested on his wand’s tip, an orange glow coming from his left. A small smile appeared on his feet as the vines hurriedly retracted back into the edges of the darkness around them, the ones below him too moving away from the heat and the light…however it was too little. Blocked by his body as it was, the flames had no effect on the vines biding the right side of his body, and the heat and light were too little to effect the Snare binding his friends.

‘I need to cast the Incendio’ he realised, gritting his teeth as he felt the flame flicker out of existence. Remembering the way he had seen Neville cast the fire spell a dozen times, he jabbed his wand forwards as much as he could, muttering the spell once again. However, like he had feared, not even a spark appeared in the darkness, and he felt the Devil’s Snare once again cover the ground at his left, the rustle of its movements seeming to echo in his brain. At the same time, Neville’s words came back to him, reverberating inside his skull along with the sound of Hermione’s chokes and gasps. Closing his eyes shut and cursing himself for his failures, Ron trembled a little from the sob that almost escaped his throat. And just like it had a few moments ago, the plant reacted instantly. He shouted as it quickly wound around his right arm, the ones on his left did so on his leg, coiling tighter and winding more and more with each passing second.

One leaf warped over his neck, and he gasped in a breath as he felt it constrict, the panic and the fear of the situation making it impossible for him relax even a little as he had done a few moments ago. An eyeblink later, it reached his mouth, pressing down on his lips and cheeks as it wound itself around his head and blocked his nose. Muffled sounds escaped his mouth, and Ron screamed as he somehow found himself just as scared as when the twins had turned his toy into a spider years ago.

Something bubbled inside him, a strange but comfortable warmth erupting from his chest and traveling through his whole body. And the next moment, he screamed loudly through the leaves covering his face, and the frustration and the fear in his heart was enough to trigger something he had not done in a long time.

Accidental magic.

A brilliant flame exploded out of his body, the orange wave expanding in all directions and burning through the darkness that permeated the chamber. The vines and leaves of the Devil’s Snare recoiled instantly from his body, as they did from Hermione and Neville when the flames passed over them—the fire not harming his friends in the slightest despite the scalding heat burning and scaring the plant back. His eyes widened as he saw the plant retreat back into the holes it had grown out of, some parts of it smoking and glowing from the fire that had managed to lick at its leaves. Sitting up quickly, Ron panted and wiped the sweat from his face, feeling the tiredness hit his body like a hippogryph’s hoof.

However, he knew that he didn’t have much time before the Devil’s Snare once again came for them. Thankfully, it seemed like Hermione was still conscious, albeit barely. “C’mon Hermione,” he rasped out, crawling over to Neville and grabbing his legs, “we need to move away from here before it comes back!”

Coughing and hacking a bit as she rubbed the welts that had formed on her neck, she stumbled forwards towards the boys and grabbed hold of Neville’s shoulders from below. “That wa-was amazing Ronald!” she beamed at the boy, shaking her head as she remembered the way the fiery wave had expanded out of Ron, “Thank you for saving our lives.”

“It was no problem Hermione,” he shuffled uncomfortably as they half-picked, half-dragged Neville towards the door that barely visible to their right. Lowering Neville for a moment, he cast an alohomora at the simple lock that was placed upon the old, rusted latch, making it fall to the stony floor with a resounding clang. Wincing as the pin-drop silence was shattered by the sound of metal ringing and banging against stone, Ron pushed the door open and grabbed Neville’s legs once again, “Let's first move into the next room before we wake him up. I don’t want to be near these plants even a second more.”

“I agre–what are those?” Hermione gasped as the sound of numerous wings flapping together rapidly reached her ears. Something zipped by her face, and she almost dropped Neville’s upon his head as she ducked wildly, her wide eyes turning up towards the thing…only to widen in shock, “Are those insects?!”

—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“So, how do we deal with the Cerberus?”

“Lumos Maxima right as we open the door and then run towards the trapdoor?”

“That sounds like a good idea,” Persephone nodded, humming a little as they crept towards the door at the end of the corridor—Neville’s description enough for them to recognize it as the entrance to the chamber in which the XXX class beast was being housed. Casting a lumos she grabbed the latch, taking a deep breath as she locked eyes with her brother, “Ready?”

“Yes,” he nodded firmly, raising his Yew and Horned Serpent wand, a cutting curse ready on his lips as he imagined the way it would cut into the Cerberus’ hide. Whispering upto three, she unbolted the door and slammed it open violently, five balls of light shooting off her wandtip into the room before it had even fully opened. She took a single glance at the reading form of the Cerberus as it was surprised by the sudden brightness that assaulted it from all sides, before her eyes flicked to the trapdoor—which was thankfully open and within reachable distance, “Run”

Nodding even though she could see him, Harry absentmindedly noted just how much more…powerful the Lux spell looked compared to how it had been when she had performed it in front of Susan and others. Darting in after him, he almost tripped and fell as he saw just how huge the monster leashed before him was. Its heads would have probably reached a height of fifteen feet if the creature hadn’t been whipping them from side to side due to Persephone’s spell.

Thanking his stars for once, Harry watched Persephone jump down the hole right as he reached the trapdoor. At the same time, the light balls around him extinguished into nothingness, and he heard the Cerberus growl angrily as it sniffed the air and scratched the stone floor with its giant claws. Hearing the light thump from Persephone hitting the floor below him, Harry gulped and jumped after her, having no desire of being near the giant hound for any moment longer than he had to.

A short scream escaped his throat as he felt himself fall through what felt like dozens of meters, the darkness seeming to close in on him and snuff out his senses while he heard the Cerberus roar in anger. Groaning as the floor suddenly broke his fall, Harry rolled off his stomach onto his back, feeling the sweat slide down his forehead as he saw the monster stare down at them from the trapdoor. “That…was close,” he panted, craking his neck as he sat up, feeling the smooth stone benath his fingers, “We were lucky it was standing on the other side of the room.”

“Yes,” his sister groaned out, and he watched her grimace as she pulled up her robe, lowering her wand to reveal the cut on her calf, “Fucking hell! Just what I needed to complete my night.”

“Sanare Vulnus” he whispered softly, leaning forwards to bring his hand close to the wound, watching the blood softly well up before it made its way down her leg. A soft green glow pulsated out from the tips of his fingers, the misty light seeming to soak through the cut and the skin around it as it went to work. The flow of blood stopped instantly, and they watched the muscle and the skin knit itself back together in a matter of moments as the spell did its job, and he thanked Arcturus silently for teaching them the spell. Wiping off the blood left behind with a handkerchief, Harry chuckled as he saw the glare Persephoen was levelling at him.

“I could have done that myself,” she poked his chest, her eyes crossing in irritation as she saw his eye roll in the light of her lumos, “and what is that supposed to mean?”

“Not-wait…did you hear that?” Harry blinked, stilling completely as he heard a soft rustle from his left, his eyes snapping in the direction as he raised his hand, creating a ball of light above his palm, “What in the nam-Incendio!”