The Snake Catcher's Tale (2)

"I didn't expect you to deliver yourself right to my door." Tom flashed a savage grin, his eyes now crimson as he stared at the great snake crawling slowly out of the smoke with its head held high, licking his lips.

"Serpensortia—" He lazily traced an arc through the air with his wand, mirroring the curve of the snake confronting him. Compared to the last time he had experimented in the Dormitory, his control over the incantation's intonation was far steadier. He cast it casually, almost carelessly. The black smoke that had helped his snakes float when he summoned them earlier gathered at the tip of his wand, linking and twisting together as it surged along the arc he drew, forming a black column of smoke as thick as a person but immensely long. Even in the darkness of night, it stood out for how black it was.

The giant snake seemed to sense the threat. Its enormous body tensed as it coiled its tail and raised its upper body, looking down at the two of them from three or four meters above the ground. Its jaws clamped shut, its head drew back, and its two huge green pupils slowly narrowed. A cloudy membrane that concealed its gaze gradually spread over its eyes from the edges of the sockets.

Suddenly! It threw open its jaws and exerted its entire body. Spiderweb cracks spread across the ground beneath their feet as a tremendous force surged up from below them. Yet this was only the first burst of force from its coiled lower body. Like a tightly compressed spring suddenly released, the enormous potential energy sent the snake's head lunging forward, its jaws held in a devouring pose, the distance between them far exceeding the limits of an ordinary snake's gape.

"Roar!" Snakes could not roar. These creatures lacked vocal cords, but Nelson distinctly felt that he had heard one. Only after the giant maw had rushed before them did he smell the dizzying stench and hear the fierce wind it raised as it tore through the night—the snake had moved so quickly that even sound and smell struggled to catch up.

"Protego! Impedimenta!" Nelson swung his wand like a fisherman battling the waves. He brandished it frantically. "Impedimenta! Impedimenta! Impedimenta! Impedimenta!"

At first, the snake's plunging, devouring charge seemed completely unhindered. All they could hear were repeated bangs ringing through the air. Nelson leaned forward, his feet gripping the ground tightly as he continuously reinforced the Impediment Jinx. At last, just as the giant mouth reached them, his final Impediment Jinx took shape.

"Bang—" With a teeth-grinding dull thud, the snake's momentum was finally halted. Driven furious by Nelson's unceasing Impediment Jinxes, it slammed viciously into his final barrier. Its head bounced high into the air and tilted to one side, while the shockwave from the heavy impact rolled toward Nelson, blowing open his collar and tossing his hair. Fighting through the ringing in his ears, he shouted, "Tom, aren't you done yet?!"

"Done, done... Go!" Tom stopped drawing arcs with his wand and thrust it forward. "Tear it apart!"

The black mist took the shape of a snake and coiled around him. It did not look much like a real snake; Tom had not wasted magic on unimportant appearances. At that moment, it resembled a churning soul. Raising its head high, it pounced at the attacking snake like a powerful Flood Dragon, savagely biting into the giant serpent's neck as it was still toppling sideways.

The snake recoiled in pain and raised its tail, lashing repeatedly at the black mist's huge body. The two colossal monsters tangled together and slammed heavily into the ground. A cloud of dust even larger than before billowed high, completely swallowing both snakes.

Nelson pulled Tom slowly backward while observing the situation within the dust. It looked like the ground had already been shattered by the battle between the two behemoths... They could only hear the shrill scrape of fangs across scales and dull collisions ringing without pause from within the dust, with no idea which side had the upper hand.

"Wingardium Leviosa!" Nelson waved his wand toward the scattered chunks left behind when Tom had blasted apart the ground with Reducto. They rose steadily from the ground and hovered at chest height before flying toward them. Like floating cannons from a science-fiction novel, they spun rapidly around the pair. As the accelerating fragments and their shadows joined together, they formed a ring resembling Saturn's rings. Nelson swung his wand and pointed at the banging cloud of dust. The clods of earth, packed hard from being trampled again and again, lined up and charged into the dust like a snake as well.

After a burst of dense, heavy collisions, the dust suddenly fell silent.

"Who won?" The two spectators looked at each other.

Bang! Bang!

The two giant snakes slammed heavily onto the ground, one to each side. The great snake glared viciously at Nelson with its green vertical pupils. As though it knew neither fatigue nor pain, it swiftly rose and opened its mouth to bite at the black mist. The black mist, being Tom's magic, naturally knew no fatigue either. It paid no heed to the places where its body had grown thin and returned the attack fiercely, fighting injury for injury.

The two giant snakes grappled, retreating once again into the dust raised by their battle.

Before long, the dust gradually thinned, and the sounds inside became sparser until they finally fell silent.

"Who won?" Nelson summoned another pile of scattered stones. He crouched and gently tapped the ground with his wand. The two had already retreated to a relatively safe position. With his movement, sharp barbs gleaming with a chilling light rose from the open ground between them and the battlefield.

"I don't know. I can still feel my snake." Tom's hand holding the wand trembled slightly. He examined the barbs in the ground and lightly kicked the nearest one. "Iron? You can manage Transfiguration over such a wide area now?"

"Just a little trick." Nelson explained with apparent modesty that was really boasting. "They're actually still made of the original ground material. I only transfigured the outer layer. The strength is about the same, but it saves time and effort."

"Mm." Tom pondered. "Should we go take a look? I can feel that my snake is still alive. That beast might be dead."

"Don't." Nelson stretched out an arm to stop him. "Wait until the dust settles."

The two stood where they were and waited for the dust to disperse. Without the battle raging inside it, the dust quickly settled. When it finally cleared completely, both of them raised their wands and pointed them ahead, tense as if facing a great enemy—the sight beneath the dust was shocking enough. The giant snake had wrapped the black mist tightly in its coils. It raised its head, and the two of them actually saw mockery on the face of that cold-blooded creature. Its scales slowly slid over the black mist, restraining its struggles as it gradually tightened its body, toying with its prey in the way jungle pythons loved best.

A massive pit had been left in the road where they fought. It seemed they had broken through the pavement and opened up the sewer several meters underground.

As the coils tightened further, the black mist finally could not endure it. With a bang, it lost its form and turned back into the black smoke it had been at first, scattering helplessly in every direction.

The snake stared fixedly at the two tiny mammals watching from the side. Sliding its body over the ground covered in spikes, it slowly approached them.

"So that's all your Serpensortia can do?"

Nelson looked at the giant snake that insisted on approaching them despite its belly being scraped bloody by the ground spikes. His mouth did not stop, and neither did his hands. Stones scattered at the side transformed into forked prongs and jabbed at the giant snake. He did not seek to pierce its scales, only to hold it in place.

"Help me pin it down here."

"Of course not." Like a conductor, Tom raised his wand and pointed at the black smoke scattered all over the ground. It stubbornly began gathering again. "As long as even one fragment remains, it will not perish."

The fragments sought out their own kind and pieced themselves together into a Black Python smaller than before. It silently slithered behind the giant snake, then suddenly sprang up and bit fiercely into its tail, wrapping its body tightly around the surrounding ground spikes. The giant snake twisted its head back in pain, opening its bloody maw to bite at the neck of its defeated foe.

In the blink of an eye! Nelson raised both hands and completed the final Transfiguration of the ground before him. The two sides of the spike-covered ground arched high, separating entirely from the roadbed. Like a carpet, they rolled toward the giant snake from both sides. At the instant its fangs pierced the black mist's neck, the ground wrapped tightly around the snake like a pancake at breakfast. The ground spikes that had originally only covered the surface now pierced into the snake's body from above, below, left, and right!

"You think you're the only one who can squeeze your prey?"

Watching its prey struggle on the verge of death within the cage, Nelson pressed down with his wand. The patch of ground, like an instrument of torture, slowly tightened, preparing to deliver the final blow.

The sharp spikes, their surfaces transfigured into metal, sank deeper into the giant snake's body as the space shrank. Nelson felt the resistance growing weaker and weaker. It seemed to have given up struggling. Blackish-red, foul-smelling blood spilled across the ground through the openings on either side.

Seeing the tightly trapped snake flick out its tongue as the membranes over its green pupils closed completely, Nelson shook his head and raised his wand, ready to put it out of its misery.

"Wait!" Tom suddenly stopped him.

"What is it? Revenge is enough. There's no need to torture it." Nelson looked toward Tom, who stood beside him with a frown, listening intently. But Tom did not look like he wanted to torture their prey. Nelson lowered his wand, and the cage stopped tightening. He too heard a faint, barely audible hissing in the air.

"What happened? What did it say?" Nelson was confused. "Is that snake begging for mercy?"

"No!" Tom was drenched in sweat, his expression serious and panicked. "It..."

"Clang!"

Before Tom could finish, the giant snake in the cage gathered its strength once more. Ignoring the spikes deeply embedded in its body, it smashed its skull through the stones and spikes blocking its way, tearing itself free from the cage covered in blood. It turned and fled at once, carving a stark trail of blood across the ground.

"It's a person! We almost killed a person!" Tom said rapidly, chasing after the fleeing snake and shouting something in Parseltongue. But the trail of blood vanished at the edge of the massive pit from earlier.

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