Willow Plot Part 3

Angel's Writing

Bleeding Heart of the Red Dragon Lily

Part 3

Willow is going to potions class with Ginny. They’re talking about the essay Professor Snape made them do.
Ginny is complaining about being a first year and having to do an essay on a 2nd year potion.
They reach their class to find the room freezing as always. Their breath hangs in a misty cloud above them.
They sit down just as Snape enters the classroom.
Willow rubs her hands together to try and drive some heat back into them.
As she is blowing her warm breath into her hands she remembers the mason jar with the blue flame that Hermione gave her to use during Quiddtich games.
She pulls it from her knapsack as discreetly as she possibly can.
She tries to conceal the jar in her lap hidden by her cloak but when Ginny sees it she snatches it from Willow to warm her own hands.
The two girls pass the jar back and forth between the two of them giggling silently behind their now warm fingers.
They have a 2nd year spell right under Snape’s nose and he doesn’t even know it.
Just then Snape whips around to look at both girls.
Willow shivers as Snape’s icy black eyes boor into her. The jig is up!
Snape tells Willow and Ginny to remain behind after class.
Snape tells them that their punishment for having a 2nd year spell is to harvest Bleeding Heart of the Red Dragon Lily.
Ginny starts to protest. She starts to tell Snape who gave Willow the jar when Willow steps on Ginny’s foot with the heel of her big boot.
Ginny yelps making Snape look at her strangely.
He demands that Ginny finish telling him who gave them the jar.
Willow speaks up for the first time trying to keep control of her temper.
She tells Snape that she looked in a 2nd years book and had written the spell down without the other student’s knowledge. It wasn’t all a lie. She had looked at Hermione’s book.
Snape looks at her with and arched eyebrow disbelievingly.
He takes away ten points each from Gryffindor then promptly gives them both detention after dinner at the end of the day.
He tells them that they will be harvesting the flower from the Dark Forest with Hagrid and two other students.
Ginny and Willow drag their feet the rest of the day dreading the detention later.
Ginny grudgingly tells her brother, Ron, that she can’t play wizards chess with him that night in the common room because she and Willow have detention for Snape’s class.
Ron sympathizes with them. He knows how detention can be. They reminisce about Ron polishing the trophies. Ron doesn’t think it’s so funny!
When the girls finish their dinner they wait with Filch in the entry hall waiting for the other students to arrive for detention.
It is no surprise to Willow that the other two students aren’t from Slytherin.
There is a Ravenclaw, Kiera Bonham, and a Hufflepuff, Sean Higgs, Terrence Higgs cousin.
Filch smiles cruelly at them and opens the large front door and leads them down the front steps.
Willow watches the lamp bobbing in the darkness and remembers the stories Fred and George have told her about playing hide and seek in the Dark Forest with Lee Jordan.
Hagrid is standing outside his stone hut waiting for them with his cross bow and Fang bouncing around excitedly and baying at the kids as they arrive.
When they head into the forest Ginny grabs Willow’s hand with her own sweaty palm and begins to walk closer to Willow.
Willow squeezes Ginny’s hand in reassurance and smiles. She can feel Ginny tremble with fear.
Willow isn’t as afraid of going into the Dark Forest as she is of what is in the forest.
Sean starts up a conversation about Quiddtich hoping to lighten up the nervous vibes hanging over their heads.
Willow and Ginny both look at him like he is crazy. Ginny’s fear is suddenly forgotten.
Kiera looks at Willow with annoyance written across her face. She asks the rhetorical question of where Willow thought the Dragon Lily grew? (‘Where do you think it grows? Hello!!’)
Ginny asks if he is related to Terrence Higgs in someway? She has a grudge against all the Seekers because they aren’t Harry Potter!
Willow rolls her eyes. She wishes that Ginny would get over him. He was just like every other kid at Hogwarts, young and stupid!
Kiera speaks up for Sean. She doesn’t like how Ginny is talking to him. He is only Terrence’s cousin. That doesn’t mean he is anything like the rest of his family.
Willow decides to quickly change the subject. She asks Hagrid where the Dragon Lily grows.
Willow, Ginny, and Sean stop dead in their tracks.
Hagrid stops a little ways in front of them when he doesn’t hear crunching foliage behind him anymore. He asks why they have stopped.
Ginny hysterically yells at Hagrid. He never said anything about a dragon.
Hagrid tells them it’s a harmless little Green Welsh.
The four kids look at each other. The Common Green Welsh is six stories tall and has jagged fangs and long yellowish – green spikes running down its back, and blood red eyes.
Hagrid tells them not to worry. He knows how to handle a dragon.
Ginny looks worriedly to Willow. They drop behind and Ginny tells willow about Hagrid’s dragon, Norbert.
They come upon a brier of thorns and Hagrid tells them that the Bleeding Heart of the Red Dragon Lily only grows in a dragon’s lair where it has breathed fire.
Hagrid motions for them all to be quiet as he raises his cross bow and enters the narrow, low entrance of the dragon’s lair.
Kiera enters first after Hagrid and following closely behind is Sean.
Willow grabs a hold of Ginny’s hand and pulls her reluctant and struggling friend in behind her.
The kids are all huddled behind Hagrid when he points to the patch of Dragon Lilies by the dragon’s enormous green head.
Willow inches out around Hagrid’s big frame and moleskin coat.
She heads straight for the dragon’s head and begins frantically picking flowers and stuffing the bleeding, blood red flowers into her flower gathering bag.
Emboldened by Willow’s actions the other three begin gathering flowers and soon the four of them are covered in the sticky red sap.
Hagrid keeps watch with Fang, ready to warn the kids if the dragon awakes.
He keeps going on about how beautiful the dragon is and how Norbert would look right now.
Ginny looks at Willow and rolls her eyes. Hagrid always was a little bit crazy about dangerous creatures.
They continue picking flowers for another few minutes when Willow stops. Something isn’t right.
She has the strangest feeling that she is being watched.
She slowly turns around to find herself face to face with the dragon’s large yellow eye, wide open and staring at her.
She screams Hagrid’s name, which alarms the others.
Hagrid yells for them to run to the entrance of the lair as he shoots an arrow at the rising beast.
Hagrid is close behind them and they begin their flight back to the edge of the forest.
The Common Green Welsh dragon is hot on their heels breathing fire it seems right on their heads.
Willow isn’t thinking about anything as she runs until she hears a scream.
She turns to see the dragon circling a ring of fire it has created and Hagrid frantically trying to catch its attention by shooting arrows at it and trying not to hurt it.
Kiera is encompassed in the fire with a look of pure terror on her face.
Ginny stops and yells for Willow. Willow tells her and Sean to keep going and tell Professor McGonagall what is happening.
Willow can’t just stand by and watch the dragon devour the poor Ravenclaw.
She has learned a spell in Professor Lockhart’s class surprisingly enough and with a little help from Hermione of course has mastered it.
She pulls out her wand and gets as close to the flames as she dares and yells ‘Extermino Glacialis (icy fire {freezes the fire})’ as loud as she can.
The flames instantly freeze and Hagrid swings his crossbow at the ice shattering it as the dragon angrily screeches above their heads.
Willow grabs Kiera’s hand and races off through the woods.
Willow can still hear the dragon’s angry screeches and feel the wind from it’s leathery wings blowing her cloak around.
When they reach the manicured lawns of the school grounds Willow sees a line of familiar faces. She also sees their wands pointed at her and Kiera.
Willow instinctively pulls Kiera down to the ground with her and can feel the magic from her teachers wands swoosh over their heads.
Willow hears the dragon cry out in pain as it is hit by all the powerful magic.
She rolls over onto her back to see Hagrid ambling out of the forest with a saddened look on his face.
She gets up and brushes the dirt and grass swiftly and fiercely from her clothes and cloak.
She angrily pulls her gathering bag over her head and takes a deep breath.
She smiles with cunning in her eyes as she observes the teachers standing around talking nervously about the dragon.
She calms herself with the knowledge that what she was about to do would get Snape into some trouble.
She walks over to Snape and stands directly in front of him. She holds out her dripping bag of Red Dragon Lily.
She tells him loudly that she has picked the best she could find.
He grudgingly takes the bag of flowers from her.
The other three quickly follow her example in full view of the headmaster.
Professor McGonagall asks Snape to join her with the headmaster.
Willow beams a smile and gives a friendly hello to her head of house as she walks passed her and up to the castle.
Snape is going to get it now, she thinks to herself.
Kiera stops Willow at the top of the main staircase. She just wants to say thank you for saving her life.
Willow smiles and tells Kiera that she would have done the same for her. Kiera blushes quickly before giving Willow a hug and races to her dormitory.
Willow frowns suddenly with the realization of how much danger they had all been in.
Ginny comes bounding up the stairs grinning from ear to ear.
She and Sean stay behind a bit longer, hoping they could hear anything the headmaster said to Snape.
They had stayed on the pretenses of holding onto Fang while Hagrid also talked with Professor Dumbledore.
Snape is reprimanded and told that from now on he is to do his own poison ingredient gathering.
She says that both she and Sean had laughed behind their hands until Snape walked by and glared at them.
Willow laughs and says it served Snape right.
Ginny playfully slaps her friends arm and says she’ll race Willow back to their dorm. They run giggling all the way.
The next morning at breakfast the girls trudge to the Gryffindor table still half asleep.
Ron asks his sister how detention had gone the night before?
She proceeds to tell them all about their new friends and picking the Red Dragon Lily, being chased by the dragon through the Dark Forest, and Snape getting into trouble.
Fred and George join the group and pat Willow on the back for a job well done.
She looks at them, confused. Fred says she made it through another adventure without getting caught and managed to get Snape’s goad.
They all laugh heartily. It seems she has a knack for that.