[ - ]
Table of Contents [Report This]
Printer Chapter or Story Microsoft Word Chapter or Story
- Text Size +
Brush With a Gorgon



Harry Potter reoriented himself to his surroundings after apparating to find himself on the end of a long pier in the early morning mist. He held his wand aloft. “Lumos,” he whispered as with faint popping sounds, two back-up aurors appeared around him on the pier. One, Jade, a young rookie, freshly graduated from Hogwarts, nearly toppled off the edge, and Harry quickly reached out and caught the wizard by his cloak and tugged him back up. They stood, poised, waiting, looking about cautiously.

They’d spent the night up in the conference room at the Ministry, searching scores of records for some mention of a gorgon but there hadn’t been one registered in centuries. Nor, for that matter, had there been any magical persons registered in the area of the Great North Woods in some time. Decades. So, with that in mind, Harry had suggested that they just go look for themselves. “Despite what my very good friend, Hermione might say, sometimes books cannot give you the answers your eyes can,” he’d declared just before saying they should all apparate to the woods and find out who or what was being mistaken for a gorgon and if, in fact, Lysander Scamander was imprisoned there.

They moved slowly down the length of the pier, their eyes ripping along the perimeter of the clearing they were moving into. Across the lake were little sleepy houses of a small village, a few gold bulbs illuminating windows, but mostly still dark. Harry took a deep breath as he led the way off the pier and onto the earth, half expecting something sinister and dark to occur at the touch of their footsteps. But nothing seemed to be coming.

“Follow me,” he urged the other wizards as he moved quickly along the edge of the lake to a path that led off into the woods. He hesitated for a moment before following it, the other aurors close behind.

A few yards in and he felt a cool chill settling around him and he slowed down, recognizing the feeling. He held out his arms to halt his guard and he paused as they came to a stop behind him. “There’s a charm of some sort blocking the road ahead,” he said. He took a step forward to see if he could detect what sort of spell it might be, and the moment his foot touched the road, a loud screeching sound vibrated through the air. “Finite incantatem!” He roared as he waved his wand at the road ahead. A slight, shivering force moved ahead of them through the trees, making the leaves hiss and shake, silencing the screeching. “Caterwauling charm.” Slowly, they moved forward. “Stay close together,” Harry whispered, “Keep your eyes open.”

It was several steps into the dark before Goodings, one of the aurors covering Harry from the back whispered, “There’s somethin’ over this way, Harry.”

Harry turned.

Moving through the dark trees they could just make out an even darker figure - a black, blurry mass that steadily came closer, ducking from tree to tree along the way. The figure moved with purpose, though not in a way that suggested whoever (or whatever) it was had seen the aurors just yet, so Harry quickly motioned for everyone to be silent and to follow him into the brush off the side of the pathway. They quickly and quietly moved into the cover of the trees and ducked behind a recently fallen one, laying on their stomachs on the ground, waiting for the figure to step into the moonlight that flooded the road.

The figure lingered behind a particularly large tree on the other side of the path. “Homenum revelio,” hissed a sleek, low woman’s voice. Harry recognized the words, though none of the others in his team did. They were in Parseltongue, a language which made the skin on Harry’s back feel as though it were climbing his spine. He closed his eyes, his throat constricted as the spell swept over them, making his heart beat wildly. Then, very quietly, in English, the voice called out, “I know that you are there.”

Harry clutched an exposed root, trying to decide how best for them to continue.

“I don’t wan’ ter die,” whispered Jade.

“You won’t,” Harry whispered. “Stay here. Both of you.” He got up slowly, climbing over the bushes that they’d hidden behind.

“What’s he doin’ then?” Jade whispered to Goodings, “Tryin’ to get himself exploded?”

Goodings shrugged, “Be quiet.”

Harry stood at the edge of the woods. “Who are you?” he demanded. “Show yourself.”

“Avada --”

“Expelliarmus!” Harry shouted, quicker than the offender. A wand flew out of the darkness beyond, right into his hand, and he dropped it to the ground, stepping on it with one foot to hold it in place without actually breaking it… yet. He stared down at it, then looked back up into the woods. “I am the chief of aurors, appointed by the Ministry of Magic. Show yourself.”

The figure seemed to hesitate. Perhaps hesitate wasn’t the word, given that they’d just attempted the use of an unforgivable curse on an auror. Then she stepped out into the trail. A sinking dread filled the pit of his stomach unlike any that he’d felt in decades. Her height and narrow waist, long jawbone, and dark, nearly violet eyes were strangely familiar to him -- especially the eyes. Making eye contact with the woman made chills run through him. But it was impossible…

“Identify yourself,” he commanded, although his voice was far shakier than he’d have liked it to be. He sounded like he had when he was a kid hiding the Philosopher’s Stone in his pocket or facing Tom Riddle in the Chamber of Secrets.

She seemed to slither as she moved toward her, though she was using her feet, it was something in the way her hips and shoulders moved toward him. “I know who you are,” she hissed. “The Boy Who Lived.” Her Parseltongue was sharp and taunting. “Thought you defeated the Heir of Slytherin, did you boy?” she had a terrifying stare.

“Who are you?” Harry asked again. He was careful to keep a foot steadily on the won wand on the ground.

“Medusa,” she hissed, long and low. "Medusa Peverell Gaunt."

"Gaunt?"

Harry realized noticed now that she was so much closer to him and the sun was coming up over the trees, illuminating her, that her hair, though normal in some parts, was also full of snakes. It was as though they had made a nest in her hair and they writhed and slithered through the plaits of her hair like moving curls. He felt sick in the stomach and stumbled back a little bit as she leaned even closer, her yellowed, broken, fang-like teeth showing as she neared. She suddenly pitched toward him intimidatingly, making Harry fall backwards onto the ground.

The moment his foot left the wand, she hissed, “Accio wand.” Before Harry could react, she had pressed the tip of the mahogany wand into Harry’s throat. “The true Heir of Slytherin wouldn’t die so easily, boy,” she said thickly.

He knew one thing: he had to stall until he had an opportunity to get the wand back.

“Easy?” he scoffed, “You think what went on between me and Voldemort was easy?”

“Compared to what you could go through with me --” she paused, a wicked smile crossed her face and she said, “Well, I suppose dying would be easier.” Her eyes twinkled with evil as she opened her mouth to utter the curse but before she could utter the words Goodings fell from the tree over her head and landed on top of her, knocking her to the ground in shock beneath him.

“Bloody hell!” Jade shouted in surprise.

The killing curse she shouted only just missed Harry as he jumped up from the ground, ducking to the side. Goodings struggled to keep her down. “She’s got snakes in her hair!” shrieked Goodings as she wildly bucked beneath him, waving her wand fitfully, shooting green sparks every which way.

“Kill him,” hissed Medusa in Parseltongue to the snakes. “Kill him!”

“What’s she saying?” he demanded.

“Watch out for the snakes!” Harry shouted, “They’re poisonous! She’s commanding them to kill.”

“Oi!” Jade’s voice echoed from the trees, “Who the bloody ‘ell keeps poisonous snakes in their hair?”

Harry ducked below a wildly aimed jet of green light from a killing curse flying from her wand, and struck the struggling witch with a binding charm. “Petrificus Totalus!” The witch stilled beneath Goodings, the snakes snapping at the air around her. Harry moved closer and swept his wand at her, producing cords that bound the witch quickly and then he removed the body-bind curse.

She hissed angrily up at him, struggling against the cords.

Harry aimed his wand at Medusa the way she had, right at the throat. “Where is Lysander Scamander?” he demanded.

“I don’t know anyone by that name,” she hissed nastily.

“Lies,” Harry snarled. “We received the Patronus -- we know he’s here somewhere. Now tell me where he is or ---”

“Harry!” Goodings voice suddenly carried from the woods behind them, wailing. “HARRY!”

The panic in his voice was so uncharacteristic to Goodings that Harry knew something terrible had happened. He turned from Medusa and looked over the brush. Goodings was kneeling on the other side of the large fallen log they’d hidden behind, clutching at Jade’s still body.

“No,” Harry whispered.

The gorgon forgotten, Harry jumped over the log and arrived at Jade’s side, too. “No. No, no, no. I promised him -- I promised him he wouldn’t die… no.” Guilt flooded his veins like ice cold water flowing through him. He aimed his wand at the boy’s heart. “Innerverate!” he shouted. “Innerverate!” His desperation was evident in the shaking of his voice. “No, no, no.”

“Avada --”

“HARRY!”

Goodings’ scream came just in time. Harry spun, aiming his wand -- “PROTEGO!” he bellowed. The shield charm shot out of the wand with a blast like a cannon, so strong that it blasted Medusa back over ten feet across the path and into the brush on the other side. Before the gorgon could recover, he quickly grabbed hold of Goodings’ wrist, and Jade’s cloak and disapparated out of the Great North Woods.

Instantly, they found themselves hidden behind a hedge of rhododendrons outside of a house in a suburban neighborhood. Goodings looked out and saw a little girl ride past on a pink tricycle. He looked at Harry. “Where are we?” he asked, confused. The sound of a game show on the telly echoed out the window. “This isn’t the Ministry,” he added.

Harry was clutching Jade still, his breath coming out in great gasps. “I didn’t… have time to think…” he panted, “We ended up at the first safe place I could think of.”

Goodings glanced around.

“It’s Privet Drive,” Harry stated. “My cousin’s house. We - we grew up here.” He looked at Jade and covered his eyes, his finger tips touching the end of his scar. “I don’t know why I came here. I never felt safe here. But Dumbledore used to say -- before Voldemort --” he stopped. Goodings was looking at him with wide, troubled eyes. Harry never spoke of the War. He shook his head, clearing the thoughts out. “Nevermind,” he said. “Let’s go.”

With a pop, the two aurors disappeared.

A head poked out of the window - a squashy-looking man about sixty years old. He squinted around the yard, a bushy mustache waggling on his upperlip. He looked down into the bushes, then up into the sky. “Harry?” he asked hopefully.

“Dudley, love, what are you doing?” called a voice from behind him in the house - his wife.

“Nothin’” he replied. “I thought I heard somethin’... but I s’pose I didn’t.” He frowned in disappointment, then ducked back into the house, pulling the window closed behind him.