giant snakes? in my magical boarding school? it's more likely than you think
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"I'll make sure she doesn't burn up," Ellie yawns.

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Smile. "Sleeping out here does sound nice, actually."

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"Might need a couple more blankets."

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"Easy enough."

She flicks her wand, lazily, and a good assortment of blankets and pillows float out into the living room, one by one.

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Magic: It's Convenienttm.

Snuggle time.

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Best time.

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Fay flows into her tiger form, jumping down from the couch to laze nearer to the fire.

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Sleep time.

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Zzzzz.

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The rest of their winter break goes just as wonderfully. Anathema quickly grows bored of Frosty and Rudolph, at least.

The students return far more cheerful than they left. The news out of the Hospital Wing isn't the best - the anti-petrification potion isn't really shelf stable, so it needs to be brewed fresh, and nowhere has it in stock... And the main ingredient, mandrakes, are intensely seasonal and not in demand enough to be grown in greenhouses so they're maturing continuously. Hogwarts grows mandrakes for Herbology practice - in Ellie and Anathema's classes, actually - but it'll take until nearly the end of the school year for them to be ready.

The first few weeks of the spring term involve a good bit of settling back into the routine of classes.

And then, in the last week of January -

Ellie and Anathema's roommate, Lisa Turpin, is discovered petrified on the sixth floor.

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Well, the Christmas spirit couldn't last forever. Not that she really expected anything to miraculously solve itself in the background over break.

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Most of the students seem to have! They are very, very freaked out, especially the other students in their years - the Ravenclaws and muggleborns more so than anyone else, but a lot of their year mates visit Lisa in the Hospital Wing, asking after her.

Even Serpens Malfoy, who's never seemed close to really anyone, takes to hovering anxiously, her face pale and stressed.

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Odd behavior for her, especially considering how she seems to disdain most inanities, but these are stressful times.

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Anathema's stressed too, though not in a way that leads to hovering - she doesn't see the point - but rather to nearly obsessive research. (They still don't have a ton of leads... Lisa was found alone, again, in the girl's bathroom, frozen peering into the mirror. The bathrooms, dorm rooms, and deep dungeons used just for storage are, at this point, basically the only parts of the castle not watched over by one or more portraits, and none of the portraits outside had seen or heard anything.)

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There's got to be- something. Something they can find, something they can do.

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Yeah.

She doesn't want to really - stop, until they find something.

(Their grades don't super suffer from this, because they're so ahead, but... There's still not much.)

And, about two weeks after Lisa was found - when tensions have just kept getting higher - they're passing through the common room on their way to study. The common room's quiet, tense, and full of people talking quietly or trying to read.

That quiet's shattered when a snake drops on one of the girls. She shrieks, flailing, and the snake falls to the ground, hissing in rather extreme displeasure about STUPID humans putting him in a STUPID box and dropping him on OTHER stupid humans and AHHHHHH he was trying to SLEEP in his DEN what is WRONG with these THINGS he wants to BITE someone about it and he doesn't know where that STUPID first human went -

Other students are jumping to their feet, the girl backpedaling and drawing her wand, as the snake thrashes and then coils, baring his teeth in warning and repeatedly slamming the tip of his tail against the stone floor, making a staccato rattling sound.

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"Hey!" Ellie says to the snake. "Calm down, you're just making things worse. If you tell me where your den is, I'll put you back, okay?"

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Anathema's face is very pale, eyes wide, but she still goes to pull the freaked out girl back (and also stop her from aiming her wand at the snake).

The snake coils, swaying a bit and turning to eye Ellie. "You can talk?" he says, clearly startled. (Still agitated, but a significant portion of the common room is now staring at Ellie, so he's marginally less freaked out.) He rattles his tail a bit slower, pupil dilating, swinging his head now to look around the room full of humans. He lowers himself and starts slithering over to her remarkably quickly, students jumping out of his way. "It's in the big rocks by the lake." He gets behind her, putting her between him and the rest of the room. "But if you put me in a box or try to steal it, I'll bite you."

The girl Anathema's holding tries to yank her arm away enough to keep pointing her wand at the snake, who hisses at her. Anathema makes a frustrated noise and grabs her wand ("It's just grumpy 'cause someone woke it up," Anathema snaps, "It's not even venomous, stop provoking it - ").

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"I have my own den. You can climb on me if you want. Let's go."

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The snake slithers up her body, resting grouchily on her shoulders and looking around. Anathema lets go of the girl, jogging over to Ellie. The other students are all giving them a wide berth.

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Ellie exits the dormitory and heads in the direction of the lake.

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The snake keeps up a bit of a running commentary at first. 

Anathema catches up to Ellie. And, after glancing to make sure there's no one around, "Uh, can you usually talk to humans?" she asks the snake. 

He eyes her, tilting his head. "Humans can't talk. Normally. You two can, and that's weird."

Anathema frowns.

"...Ellie, are you normally able to - talk to snakes?"

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"Yes? I mean, I haven't met a lot of snakes, but there was a python at the zoo..."

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"Uh. That's. Not a common ability." She's frowning.

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"Huh. I guess I haven't really seen it talked about. But it's not like it would come up a lot."

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