章節 72: Snatching Defeat from the Jaws of Victory
Daphne closed her eyes and concentrated. She was drunk on her own power, and it was making her positively giddy! She felt everything the oak trees felt; she and nature were as one. She felt them breathe, dig its roots through the hard rock, drink in the water of the Chamber and reach out towards sunlight.
Daphne flexed her fingers experimentally, and swiped her hand through the air. A tree near Mafalda mimicked Daphne's movements, whipping at her with its branches. Daphne frowned; Mafalda had easily dodged out of the way of the attack. Even with all the magic Oleandra was sending her way, she had trouble making the trees attack. Oaks were very rigid trees by nature, they were nothing like Whomping Willows!
"Is that all you have, Greengrass sisters?" said Mafalda, smirking. "I'll admit you surprised me by bringing the sun down here, but you disappoint me! With all that build-up, I was expecting something big!"
"Teiwaz!" cried out Oleandra, while assuming the Stadha of the letter T by T-Posing. A golden lance appeared in her hand, and she flung it towards Mafalda. This was the rune of the god of war, she was actively trying to kill instead of incapacitate!
Mafalda once again conjured a magical shield, but she flung herself to the side the moment she realized the spear would pierce through her protections! Still, she couldn't avoid all the damage, and the spear dug out a chunk of her left shoulder, leaving her left arm incapacitated. At the same time, Mafalda lost her concentration, and the spell holding Potter up by the ankle was terminated.
Potter dropped down to the ground, quickly rolled to his feet and rejoined the sisters by the small forest that Daphne had grown around her.
Farther away, Weasley emerged from the pool; he couldn't hold his breath any longer, and his skin was beginning to turn blue from hypothermia and hypoxia. He pulled himself out of the water and rolled on to his back, wheezing. The Basilisk was still searching for him; it had lost his scent, which had been washed away, but it could still hear him!
"Uh-oh," Weasley said weakly, as the king of snakes slithered its way to him.
"Ron, throw me the hat!" cried Potter, as he threw rubble to draw the Basilisk's attention elsewhere. The snake's head swivelled, and Ron hurled the wet hat towards the trees, where it landed with a splat. Fawkes the Phoenix then swapped targets, and started harassing Mafalda.
Suddenly, Oleandra slumped down to the ground, and Daphne staggered and fell back against a tree trunk. The effects of the ALU runeword that had granted them infinite power had just ended, and at the worst possible time!
"No more rune magic," panted Oleandra. "It's all up to you now, Sis."
"I can't control the oak trees with only my magic," said Daphne miserably. "Too much effort."
"Then go smaller," suggested Potter, as he picked up the hat. "That's what Hermione would say, I think."
"What good would that do?" Daphne snapped. "The Basilisk's skin will repel anything we throw at it. We'll never beat it without going big."
"Wait, hold on, I've got an idea," said Oleandra. "Mistletoe, you should have some, right?"
Ordinary mistletoe was a parasitic plant that fed on the trees it grew on. However, when harvested from an oak tree with a golden sickle, it became a common ingredient for strength enhancing potions. Daphne carried a variety of plants in her shoulder bag, and mistletoe was one of them!
Oleandra had got the idea from the legend of Baldr, one of the Æsir. It was said that the Wizard Baldr had created a spell to render himself immune to all attacks. However, there was no such thing as an invincible spell. The stronger the spell, the more devastating the side effects. No object on earth could harm him, except for harmless old mistletoe, which would instantly kill him! It was a lesser-known version of Achilles' heel.
"What, are we going to kiss under the mistletoe?" said Daphne sarcastically.
"Hey, that's not a bad idea," Oleandra noted. "If it were closer to Christmas, we might have chance to make it work by invoking a sympathetic magic ritual, but's that's not what I meant. Mistletoe is a parasitic plant, it's poisonous and it's not rigid at all!"
"Oh, I get it," said Daphne in understanding. "We do it just like with Fluffy."
Daphne pulled a mass of mistletoe from her bag and threw it up at the oak trees. She closed her eyes, and mobilized the parasitic plant to absorb the oak trees' vitality, making it propagate across all the trees in the Chamber.
On his side, Potter wasn't entirely sure what to do with the sopping wet Sorting Hat, so he did as one is wont to when presented with a hat; he put it on. After a moment, he winced. To Oleandra's astonishment, Potter then took off the hat and pulled a sword out from it, a scene which felt oddly familiar to her.
"Damned flying chicken!" swore Mafalda. "Bombarda! Confringo!"
She finally managed to drive the Phoenix away by hurling Exploding Charms and Detonation Curses at it.
"NOW!" yelled Oleandra.
Mafalda turned around, but the attack wasn't directed at her! As the Basilisk was finally about to snap up Weasley and have him for supper, a thick mass of vines crept up and spun all around it, stopping it in its tracks! The mistletoe dug its roots between its scales and began drinking up its blood, all the while restraining its movements and weighing it down.
An inhuman scream escaped the serpent's maw, but it couldn't wriggle its way out of the mistletoe's runners, and its entire body was pinned to the ground. Potter yelled as he charged at the Basilisk, holding his sword aloft. With one final battle cry, he plunged the sword into the roof of the monster's mouth and pushed, scrambling its brains!
The serpent's scream slowly died out. With a flick, Potter withdrew the sword, which was now covered in oozing black fluid.
Now, there was only one enemy left!
But strangely enough, despite losing her greatest ally, Mafalda was wearing an enigmatic smile on her face. And suddenly, under the four's mystified eyes, Mafalda fainted where she stood, collapsing to the ground.
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