1,399Yo! Thank you to all readers so far!
Potter had already been taken to the hospital wing by the time Severus got there, and Poppy was hovering over her worriedly, her wand still in hand as she looked closely at her diagnostic charm.
"I had a feeling I would be seeing you here," she said when he walked in. "I don't know what they were thinking, making her go alone against a nundu of all things!" She dismissed the diagnostic parchment with an irritated flick of her wand.
Stopping at Potter's bedside, Severus looked down at the girl. "What is her condition?" he asked. She was sickly pale, and the circles under her eyes were so dark he was almost convinced she'd been punched in the face. Her breathing was shallow, but when he checked her pulse, he found that it was slow but even.
"Stable," Poppy replied, her eyes moving to Potter as well. "I had to force two bezoars and a general anti-toxin into her to take care of the nundu toxin, but thankfully, it seems to have been enough."
"And her lungs?"
"I've already repaired most of the damage, but the spell takes a few hours to finish working. She also had a broken rib, but it was a clean break with an easy fix. Her palm was cut badly as well, but that was also mended easily."
Severus relaxed slightly. Fortunately, he always insisted Poppy keep a handful of bezoars in the hospital wing. They were rarely useful, but he was a paranoid man and preferred to have them there regardless of whether they would ever be used or not. In his eyes, it was better to have them in place in case they were ever required, rather than not having them when there was a dire need for them.
"Will there be any permanent damage to her lungs?" asked Severus, brow pinched and eyes still on the girl.
Poppy pursed her lips, hesitating slightly before saying, "I can't say. I want to say no because she was only affected for a few minutes, but nundu toxin is so potent that even going two or three minutes without being healed can cause life-long changes. I'll take a closer look at her lungs once the potion has done its work, but we'll have to see from there. Depending on the damage, she may have no choice but to be admitted to St. Mungo's."
Before Severus could even begin to hope it wouldn't get that far, the doors to the hospital wing flew open and he turned, expecting to see Albus. But instead of the headmaster, the one hurrying in was a panicked Lupin.
"Poppy! How's Violet!? Is she alright!?"
Severus watched Lupin begin to calm down as Poppy explained everything to him, though she had to reassure him more than once that the girl was alive and safe.
After a few minutes, she patted Lupin's shoulder comfortingly, placed a monitoring charm on Potter, and then retreated into her office, where she sat behind her desk and began to scribble down her notes furiously.
Rubbing a tired hand over his face, Lupin sat down in the chair next to Potter's bed and took her hand in his. Potter didn't move. Severus watched, debating with himself, but he eventually spoke.
"Did Albus call for you?"
"Hmm?" voiced Lupin distractedly. "Yes, he told me to come to the castle immediately and showed me his memories of Violet's task." Lupin sighed heavily and rubbed his face again. "I knew it was going to be dangerous, but I can't say I was expecting a nundu to be involved."
"...What do you make of Potter's scores?"
Lupin looked at him, frowning. "Her scores? For the task? Albus' memory cut before I was able to see them."
Interesting. Why cut the memory off there? Was Albus simply focusing on Potter's danger and assuming her scores were irrelevant? Or did he not want Lupin to know he had given one Potter a ten and the other a measly four? It was blatantly unfair, especially considering the difference between how the two had performed during the task.
Curious to see how Lupin would react, Severus told him Potter's scores and he watched as the frown on Lupin's face deepened. Yes, they were certainly thinking the same thing now.
"What did the others score? Do you remember?" asked Lupin. "And the creatures the rest dealt with. What were those?"
"Thirty-two, for Potter, thirty-six for Krum, thirty-four for Delacour," said Severus. "Potter went through a hippogriff, sphinx, and Swedish Short-Snout; Krum went through a troll, chimaera, and Chinese Fireball; Delacour went through a matagot, griffin, and Common Welsh Green."
"And Violet scored twenty-five and went through a runespoor, Hungarian Horntail, and a nundu," Lupin finished. "I see." He looked at Potter's still-too-pale face. "Odd, isn't it? This situation? I can't say much about Krum and Delacour-things seemed mostly fair when it came to them, but this...difference between the twins is..." Lupin trailed off, but Severus knew what he was getting it.
"The task was rigged, no doubt," he said.
"I'd be surprised if it wasn't," said Lupin with a wry smile. "But who rigged it? And why? Was it just to give Rose an easy win?"
"She is the Girl-Who-Lived," Severus pointed out.
"That's true," said Lupin slowly. "But even then, why give the nundu to Violet instead of one of the older two? I know they would have been in just as much danger, but even then..."
Lupin wasn't wrong about that. While Krum and Delacour wouldn't have fared much better against the nundu, having a handful of years on Potter would have made the situation even a touch safer simply because they would have had an expanded arsenal of spells to use, ineffective though those spells would no doubt have been.
"Have you ever heard of a parasitic spell, Severus?" asked Lupin suddenly.
Severus frowned at the unexpected question. "Are you referring to a magic siphoning spell? Yes, I know of them."
"What about a parasitic spell that takes magic from one person and gives it to someone else?"
Severus' frown deepened. "I did not realize such a siphon existed. Why do you ask?"
Lupin glanced around the room, but they were the only ones there, along with the still-unconscious Potter. Poppy remained in her office to review her files and was well out of earshot. "Last year," said Lupin quietly, "we found one of those parasitic spells on Violet."
"...What?"
"It was when I was teaching her the Patronus charm," Lupin continued. "She collapsed suddenly, screaming and clawing at where her magical core should be. Poppy checked her over and found that something was attached to her magical core and contacted a goblin to come examine her."
"And the goblin found the parasitic spell?"
"Yes. He said the spell was siphoning away a small amount of her magic. But there was a connecting spell as well. The magic being taken from Violet was being sent to someone else, but the goblin wasn't able to say who, and he didn't know how long it'd been there. He removed it right away."
Lupin looked at him. "I did a lot of research after that," he said. "I'd heard of siphoning spells, but not ones that took magic from one person and gave it to another. They're extremely powerful spells. Far more powerful than the regular parasitic spells. They're very rare as well. I checked dozens and dozens of books and not a single one of them noted the incantation."
Severus' eyes narrowed. "What are you implying, Lupin?"
"Nothing, really," said Lupin with a shrug. He looked at Potter again, tightening his grip on her hand. "Just that whoever put the siphoning spell on her had to be someone powerful. I don't know if the same person is behind entering her and Rose into this tournament, but seeing as someone powerful has to be behind this as well..."
"It may be worth considering," Severus finished.
"Yes."
Severus pinched the bridge of his nose. Rose Potter was the Girl-Who-Lived, wasn't she? So why was Violet Potter the one in the thick of most of the danger?
"Come, my most loyal. What news do you bring me?" He lay on the couch, trapped in this small, pathetic form, soaking in the heat of the fire Wormtail had shoddily cast into the hearth to ward off the worst of the November chill.
He had asked his most loyal to report to him after the conclusion of the first task in the Triwizard Tournament, and finally, he'd come. Greeting him, his loyal one knelt before him and bowed his head.
"The first task ended some hours ago, my Lord," said his loyal one. "But there were...complications that delayed my return."
"Tell me." In most cases, he would have used legilimency, but though he loathed to admit it, he was too weak for that at the moment. He had to count on being told. That was all he could do. Fortunately, his loyal one was unlikely to lie to him.
And so, his loyal one spoke, telling him what the first task had been, which order the four champions had competed in, what creatures they'd gone through, how they'd done it, and what they had scored. And the more he heard, the more he frowned.
"The challenge was rigged, then," he said once his loyal one fell silent. "Perhaps not for Krum and Delacour, but certainly for the Potter twins. Do you know who may have rigged the tournament?"
"I have nothing but suspicions yet, my Lord. Dumbledore is a suspect, of course, but I'm not sure why he would want to single out Violet Potter in that way. If his goal is to make Rose Potter come across as superior, this is a poor way of doing it."
"That...is fair," he agreed. The dragons were fair game, he decided, and he would have considered the sphinx the same if it wasn't for the riddle she had asked Potter. He knew the riddle and he knew Violet would have recognized it as well. She would never have failed. The runespoor was giving him pause as well.
In most cases, he would have thought it too was chosen by chance, but Violet was a Parselmouth and the public didn't take kindly to that. What were the odds that out of the four champions in the tournament, the single Parselmouth was the one to contend with the snake?
But the nundu was the most suspicious. Its very presence was suspicious and Violet being the one to face it, especially after the runespoor, was more than a little suspect.
"Ludo Bagman is another suspect, my Lord," said his most loyal a moment later. "He has bet a lot of galleons on Rose Potter winning the tournament, and her getting the easiest rounds could also be his doing. If he loses, he'll be in debt to the goblins, so he has reason to favour one over the others."
That too was a fair assumption. He knew little about Bagman, but greed remained one of the most popular motivations for these sorts of things. And being in debt to the goblins was something best avoided. There was no reason to doubt it.
"Of course," said his loyal one, "there's always the coward, Karkaroff, but I don't believe he would sabotage his prized student this way."
Another fair assumption. Karkaroff was a coward who'd tried to escape him, but yes, he had no reason to favour a Potter over his own champion, so his involvement in this seemed unlikely.
"I suspect no one else at present," his most loyal concluded.
"What about Severus?" he asked a little curiously.
"...I doubt it," his loyal one replied tersely. "He cares about Violet Potter too much to put her in that sort of danger."
"He cares for her?"
"He pretends otherwise, my Lord."
He couldn't stop the soft laugh that left him. "Yes, that does sound like Severus. Tell me, what is Violet's condition?"
"She is currently in the hospital wing under the medi-witch's care. The toxin has been removed from her body, but the level of damage to her lungs is currently unknown."
"Have there been any reports in the papers?" he asked.
"Two so far," his loyal one replied. "One paper makes it very clear the task appears rigged in favour of Rose Potter, and pushes that there must be some sort of feud between the twins. The other ignores Violet Potter entirely and speaks only of the other three champions."
"I see. You have done well thus far," he praised. "Return to the castle and keep me updated." And once he was alone a moment later, he frowned again.
Violet had faced a nundu and lived to tell the tale. He doubted she would be unscathed-no one was that fortunate, but she was alive, at the very least, which was more than most who'd come face-to-face with a nundu could say.
If she was still unconscious, she wouldn't have had the chance to think over the situation yet, but if she woke-when she woke, he knew she would think the same thing as him. He knew she would suspect the task of being rigged. Who would she believe was behind it?
The situation was frustrating and infuriating, but it was also intriguing. He would have to find out who had planned this. He would have to find out who had the audacity.
Violet had done well, exceptionally so, but would she fare just as well in future tasks? He could be of no help to her. Not while he was trapped in this body.
The potion was going to take much too long to brew.
Violet woke in pain. A lot of pain. So much pain.
Her chest was burning as if she'd been set on fire on the inside, and her legs felt heavy as if they were being weighed down. She was breathing too quickly, and the breaths were too shallow, but the second she tried to take a deeper breath, the air caught in her throat and she broke into a coughing fit.
Oh, Salazar, that just made her chest hurt worse! Her lungs were burning and stinging and aching as she coughed so hard she nearly threw up. Each cough tore through her painfully, leaving her throat burning nearly as badly as her lungs.
She felt hands on her, slipping under her back and pushing her up so she was sitting, but she only slumped forward, too weak to hold herself up, body doubling over with the force of her painful coughs. She could hear voices, but she was coughing too loudly to make out what was being said.
Then her head was tipped back and a foul-tasting liquid was poured into her mouth. She choked and gagged, but rough hands that were trying to be gentle covered her mouth and massaged her throat until she swallowed the liquid. Whatever the potion was, it got her to stop coughing surprisingly quickly and the hands pulled away from her.
Keeping her head tipped back, Violet gasped for breath, tears leaking out of the corners of her still-shut eyes. Arms came around her and she felt herself getting pulled to a strong but warm chest.
"You're alright," a familiar voice said gently. "You're alright. I'm sorry. You're alright."
"She must drink this as well," said another familiar voice, and once again, her head was tipped back.
A little more alert now that she'd stopped coughing, Violet was better prepared for it and was able to swallow the potion without trouble, and the pain in her lungs started to fade a little.
The arms pulled her close again and, too tired to fight it, she just let it happen. She'd never gotten this sort of comfort before. It was weird but it felt nice. Though it also sort of made her want to cry, and she wasn't sure why.
It took Violet a surprising amount of effort to open her eyes, and it took even more effort to rub her eyes when her vision was too blurry to see. Blinking a few times, her vision cleared up and it was only now that she realized she was in the hospital wing.
Why was she-oh. Right. The nundu toxin.
"Violet?"
She looked up, only now realizing who the person holding her was. "R-Remus?" Her voice was hoarse and she winced as pain shot through her throat. When she turned her head, she saw both Snape and Madam Pomfrey standing nearby, and coiled up on her legs was Sauron, who she was amazed had been allowed into the hospital wing at all.
No wonder her legs felt heavy.
A lot happened after that, but it was mostly a blur. Madam Pomfrey cast a bunch of spells over and on her to check things, Snape made her drink a lot of gross potions, and Remus tried his best to be reassuring and comforting, even though he looked like he was about to pass out from exhaustion.
Sauron woke up during the havoc and refused to leave her alone, tongue flicking out to touch her cheek as he made her she was safe, and Violet just tried to make sense of everything happening through all of the pain she was feeling.
Eventually, she was left alone.
Madam Pomfrey went into her office, Snape left for the dungeons, and Remus said he had to talk to Dumbledore. Sauron left as well, saying he would try to get her friends to follow him because they would do a better job of explaining things than him.
Sighing, Violet lowered back down in bed and closed her eyes. She'd been told she was going to have to stay in the hospital wing for another day or two so Madam Pomfrey could make sure she'd healed up properly, and she couldn't say she was surprised. She felt terrible.
...Why did she always end up in the hospital wing?
"It's been a mess," said Theodore.
Violet sat propped up on a few pillows, listening as Theodore, who Sauron had led to the hospital wing, explained things to her from her bedside. He hadn't managed to find Hermione, which meant she was likely in Ravenclaw Tower, where Sauron couldn't get to her, so Theodore had to tell her everything on his own.
"Most of the Slytherins are furious," Theodore continued. "Not all of them, of course, but pretty much all of the fifth, sixth, and seventh years. Hermione's mentioned a lot of the Ravenclaws are upset as well, and Neville said some Hufflepuffs are questioning things too. Those Weasley twins you're so fond of haven't been speaking to most of their housemates either."
"All because of the nundu?" said Violet in surprise. Her voice was still noticeably hoarse, but one of the potions Snape had made her drink, along with the hot tea Madam Pomfrey was making her sip on, were helping.
"Yeah. Nundu's are restricted creatures," said Theodore, "and not even the Ministry's allowed to capture them. They say it's because they're so dangerous it isn't worth the risk. Unlike a lot of creatures, they can't be domesticated or cared for or anything, so them putting one into the tournament is a really big deal. The problem is that you being a Parselmouth kind of overshadowed that."
Violet frowned. "Why? Everyone around here should be fully aware of that considering what happened two years ago."
"Yeah, but most people outside of Hogwarts had no clue," said Theodore. "And the papers have been talking about it for days now."
"Days? Wait, sorry, how long was I out for?"
"They didn't tell you?" said Theodore in surprise. "You were unconscious for nearly a month. Today's the twenty-third of December."
Violet stared, wide-eyed. "...Well, no wonder Remus looked ready to pass out."
Theodore let out a humourless laugh and poked her arm in reprimand. "Honestly, I'm surprised you didn't ask any of them when you woke up."
Violet shrugged. "I was a bit busy coughing up my lungs."
"Fair enough." Theodore leaned back in his chair and brushed hair out of his eyes. "Well, yeah, it's been about a month. Apparently, you kind of fell into a coma or something and just wouldn't wake up, but Madam Pomfrey said she used that time to mend the damage to your lungs. She's been saying you'd wake up soon for days now. Guess she was right."
Violet nodded slowly. She hadn't expected this. It had honestly felt like minutes to her. She was assuming her magic had protected her muscles and the like, because other than feeling tired, she hadn't had any trouble getting up and walking to and from the bathroom. That probably wouldn't have been as easy if she'd been in a regular coma.
"So, what exactly have the papers been saying?" she asked after a pause.
"So, at first one paper was talking about how unfair the task was to you while another was talking about everyone else in the task but ignoring you," Theodore explained. "And then they started focusing more on the nundu, since they're, y'know, illegal as hell. But after that, one paper started talking about you being a Parselmouth, and compared you to the Dark Lord and Salazar Slytherin, and-"
Violet nodded. "Yeah, I get it." She ran a hand over her face tiredly. "What happened in the rest of the task?" she asked. "I couldn't watch the other three compete from the champion's tent, and Bagman's commentary didn't mention details for some reason."
Theodore grimaced. "Yeah, about that..." He recounted the first task to Violet who listened closely, but the more she heard, the deeper her frown became.
"Is anyone talking about how the task was obviously rigged?" she asked when Theodore finished.
"Not really," said Theodore with a shrug. "I mean, some people are, sure, but not many. Since the papers didn't bring it up, well, you know how stupid they are."
"Yeah..." said Violet slowly.
But, Violet thought, even if the task was rigged, what could she even do about it? It wasn't like she could prove it. And even if it could be proven, then the adults would have dealt with it by now, right? Surely Snape, at least, would have tried.
She didn't think he liked her very much, but he didn't seem to hate her the way he hated Rose either. He'd even said he believed her about not entering herself in the tournament. That had to count for something.
The first culprit to come to mind was Voldemort, of course, but why would he rig the task against her? It was true that her being the Girl-Who-Lived meant she was more of a threat to him, but he couldn't have forgotten what had happened in her first year.
And even if it was him, Voldemort seemed like the kind of person who would want to kill his nemesis in person rather than through a bloody nundu of all things. She couldn't say she knew him particularly well, but if he was behind the rigging, then she felt it would be very out of character for him.
Dumbledore was another option, of course, but why would he do something like this? Was he just so desperate to push Rose as the perfect and powerful Girl-Who-Lived that he was willing to get Violet killed? But why bother? It wasn't as if her being around was harming Rose's reputation. Most people just ignored her existence.
Was it less to get her killed and more to just show that Rose was better than her? If Rose did better than her in the tournament, people would surely think it meant Rose was stronger than her. But Violet thought that didn't make much sense either. The motivations made sense, sure, but the execution definitely didn't.
If Dumbledore or whoever was behind this wanted people to think Rose was stronger than her, why rig the tournament to make things so easy for Rose that she barely had to do anything at all? Especially compared to the rest of them. That didn't make her look strong. In fact, out of everyone, Rose looked the weakest, even if her scores said otherwise.
"Oh," said Theodore suddenly. "There's something else you should know."
"Hmm?"
"The Yule Ball."
Violet blinked. "What?"
"The Yule Ball," Theodore repeated. "It's this...dance thing that's traditionally part of the Triwizard Tournament. The champions have to attend and do the opening dance. It's in two days."
Violet paled, suddenly filled with dread. "No way."
"No exceptions, or so Dumbledore said." Theodore patted her shoulder unhelpfully. "Don't worry. I'll be your date. I wasn't going to bother attending if you didn't wake up anyway. Can you dance?"
"No."
"...Well, shit."
Violet let out a strangled laugh.
That's it for now. Not exactly a filler chapter, but yeah, everyone's talking about the same thing and trying to figure shit out. I thought about putting the Yule Ball in here too, but with the way the rest of the chapter turned out, I thought it would end up sounding a bit jarring and decided to save it for the next chapter instead. Looking forward to reviews! Laterz!