Lamia's Lament

I knew that trying anything now would probably be a horrible idea; no doubt Dumbledore would be down soon to see me and tell me that everything was going to be just peachy. How everything was going to be alright when the one man that could fix it was technically in a magically induced coma was beyond him. I slipped back into the bed that Poppy had jokingly put a plaque with his name on and tried to get comfortable, which was surprisingly easy all things considered. Shortly after I lay down I must have fallen asleep as the next time I opened my eyes it looked to be around noon and Dumbledore was standing with Poppy next to her office. They were talking in quiet voices, but I could easily hear them from my bed, probably a side effect of my shiny new self.

Dumbledore was twinkling as per usual as Poppy seemed about ready to hit him. “How are we going to fix this Albus? The only person in the castle that has the knowledge to reverse this safely became violent the moment he woke up!” She looked to be about ready to pull her hair out. “The only other people that can help are the Potion Masters that the Ministry employs and we can’t bring them into the castle.”

Dumbledore started to stroke his beard in thought with the twinkle as bright as ever. “Don’t worry my dear, I’m sure that we will be able to fix this little problem, it will simply require a little more time then Severus would have taken, I have already given Ms. Granger free reign to attempt to construct an antidote, I’m sure she will succeed.”

Poppy looked at him like he was out of his mind, which everyone assumed was the case, especially after seeing his wardrobe. “Albus, Ms. Granger may be one of the smartest witches of her year when it comes to what you can learn from a book but she has no experience in reversing a potion without instructions. She won’t even be able to find research material on the potion as Severus was the one to invent it in the first place. We can not leave the humanity of Harry Potter and Severus Snape to a child who only knows how to memorize things out of a book; she is not equipped to come up with new knowledge. I refuse to leave their fate in her hands!”

Dumbledore seemed to be taken aback by the fire in Poppy’s eyes and her rather harsh words about Hermione, she is right though, Hermione never thinks outside of the box. “Now Poppy, there is no reason to be so harsh. Ms. Granger is one of the brightest muggleborn students we have.”

He probably would have continued, but Poppy stepped closer to him until she was inches away from his face, though she had to stand on the tips of her toes to see eye to eye. “She is a child that thinks that the sun shines out of your behind and is willing to do whatever you ask her to.” Her face was slowly turning red as her anger seemed to be getting the best of her. “She is the reason that two of my favorite people are snake hybrids, one became so violent when he woke up that he has to be constantly sedated! You just want to keep them this way because you think that it will give you an advantage against the Ministry and the Dark Lord! You need to stop seeing everything as a move on a chessboard and see that your actions have serious consequences for everyone around you.”

Dumbledore seemed to deflate a little bit before he seemed to gather his wits. “Poppy, surely you understand that something like this could be the tipping point between victory and defeat, everything I do is for the greater good.”

I could tell that that was the worst thing that he could have said as Poppy went from red to white in an instant. “You old fool! I will not listen to such stupidity within my infirmary, you will leave this instance and you will not reenter. If you injure yourself in any way you can take yourself to St. Mungos!”

It was rather amusing to see the great and powerful Albus Dumbledore almost running out of the infirmary with Poppy following with her drawn wand, she then proceed to leave the infirmary after casting a few wards on the door, probably to keep the old man out.

After I was sure that she wasn’t going to walk right back in, I slid out of the bed and set about making my way toward where Snape was still in his induced sleep. I needed to wake him up, to be perfectly honest, I don’t really care about turning back into a human but he didn’t deserve to be treated like this. They probably didn’t even wonder about why he was being violent before they decided to put him under, there had to be a reason. Just like the last time I had neared, Snape became more and more agitated the closer I got to him. This time I got a lot closer and found that he was hissing slightly under his breath, it was definitely Parseltongue, though it was hard to make out. “Need…Want…Have…Mine…” It sounded like he was in pain and I instinctually found myself leaning over him and I laid my hand on the top of his arm and he went stock still before his movement became almost violent before his eyes shot open and I found myself looking into endless onyx eyes with no whites. He stared for one seemingly endless moment before he launched himself at me, knocking me to the ground and covering my form with his own, excited hisses filling my ears.
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Dumbledore’s POV

Poppy just doesn’t understand how important this could be to the war effort, she’ll understand later. This could be the power that Harry will need to win against Tom, Lamia are known to be quite powerful and the boy is now quite attractive as well. Tom will likely want such a creature at his side which will bond both of their souls together, meaning that they could simply take the boy out and Tom would follow. The sacrifice of Harry would end the war in one swoop. It was a shame that the boy would have to die but it was for the greater good, just like everything I have done. Now all I need to do is encourage my little muggleborn student to keep scouring the books for the answers, she wouldn’t find anything but it made it look like I am trying to solve the problem. It’s a shame that Snape was locked in a deep sleep but the very first thing he had tried to do was fight his way to Harry, most likely in the attempt to mate. The two would be very compatible if they only stopped fighting, but if they mated his plans were ruined. I’m only glad that I was the only one that realized what he was trying to accomplish. I popped a Lemon Drop into my mouth and hummed one of the songs that I had heard the students singing as I continued on my way to further my plans and then take a nice long bubble bath.
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Poppy’s POV

I will not sit back and watch that foolish old man put my two favorite people in danger just to further his pathetic idea of the greater good! I stormed out of the castle scaring several students that were coming out of the Great Hall, but I was far beyond caring. If Albus was going to play things this way then it was time to play my own ace, those two are like sons to me and I will not see them hurt if there is even one thing that I could do to put a stop to it. I barely slowed down at the edge of the wards as I apparated to the one place that I never thought that I would see again. Hopefully, he wouldn’t mind the intrusion and was willing to make a compromise for an old friend.
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Hermione’s POV
I searched the potion books in front of me almost frantically; I had to find the reversal to the botched potion. Dumbledore wanted me to be the one to fix this and I am not going to let one of the greatest wizards of all time down, and if I manage this I will be respected as more then a know it all muggleborn friend of the savior. I do consider Harry as a friend but he was also one of the only reasons that anyone paid attention to me, without him no one would give me a second glance. If I do this though I would be famous in my own right, not just being the brains of the Golden Trio. I jumped in fright when Dumbledore walked into the library with a smile on his face as he asked how everything was going. I was almost ashamed to admit that I hadn’t really made even a little headway since he had asked me to start but he assured me that I was doing just fine and that he had faith that I would be able to solve it. I felt lightheaded; one of the greatest wizards had faith in me. I floated on cloud nine for the rest of the day.
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I felt Snape’s scales rubbing against mine as he slithered back and forth; it was honestly making me nervous, especially as his nonsense hisses got louder. “Professor, please let me up. We need to talk, something is very wrong here.”

“Not wrong, right.” He stopped and looked me in the eyes with a very somber look. He looked like he was trying to convince me of something though I wasn’t quite sure what that happened to be.

“Whatever you want can wait, we need to talk. There’s a problem.” He looked startled for a moment before his eyes lightened and he shot off of me with a startled look on his face.

“What the hell is going on here, Potter?!” Ah, the Severus Snape that I know and love. It only took a moment for him to notice the changes in me and to assess himself. “What did you do?”

I felt the anger take control of me. “ME?! Why do you think that this is my fault?!” I could see that he wanted to interrupt, but I wasn’t going to give him the chance. “If you had let us pick our own partners Hermione wouldn’t have flown off the handle and botched the potion by throwing the whole snake heart directly into the stupid potion and we wouldn’t be snakes! I shouldn’t have even bothered waking you up and let them keep you sedated!”

Snape paled three shades past what I thought was possible. “They were keeping me sedated?”

I did feel a little bad for him but really, he just had to make everything my fault. I actually made the potion correctly until Hermione threw her little fit. “Yeah, Poppy said that the first time that you woke up you became rather violent and they were forced to put you under. Poppy was furious at Dumbledore for refusing to find a way to wake you up. He actually wants to leave our fates in Hermione’s hands, and though the girl is smart, she only knows what you can find in a book.”

Snape began to do the snake form of pacing from one end of the Infirmary to the other. He looked to be deep in thought so I sat down on my bed and waited for him to finish with whatever he was thinking.
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Snape’s POV

‘This is not good.’ I have a feeling that I know exactly why I was sedated and why that old coot wanted to keep me that way. I have always found Harry to be an attractive child and he has only gotten more beautiful over the years, but now I could feel the pull from somewhere deep inside my magic to bind him to me for the rest of our lives. The potion seems to have changed us into our closest snake hybrid counterpart. The boy was most definitely a Lamia, which were supposed to all be female which gave away the fact that the boy was submissive, which is not helping my state of mind. I appear to be a Naga, which come in both genders, mainly dominant. I must have been trying to get to the boy in a mating frenzy, that sounds so wrong, and when Dumbledore realized what was happening he sedated me to keep the boy unmated, but why?

The answer hit me like a bus; he wanted to mate the boy off to the Dark Lord. It is no secret that the Dark Lord has been looking for someone to produce an heir, but has yet to find anyone that he finds worthy. Lamia are known to be beautiful and very fertile and the snake aspect was a plus for a man obsessed with snakes. The part that Dumbledore wouldn’t know was that the Dark Lord had already set his sights on Harry as a Consort; he had reanalyzed the part of the prophecy he had and found that binding the boy to him would negate it entirely. He also found the boy to be fiery and beautiful; he had been planning to lure the boy out during this year’s attack.

Thinking about the Dark Lord and Harry made jealousy, possessiveness and intrigue roll through me, how strange. I had to shake myself to get back on track, I need to think of a way out of this, we need to get out before whatever Dumbledore is planning bares fruit.
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