Adrian nodded without seeing, sprinting after the crowd on autopilot.
He heard the screams and cries of people; women and men alike. Tents were on fire, spells of purple and yellow flung around the clearing, fending off the acrid green.
Adrian'd father always said his eyes looked so similar.
Another group of panicking family melded with Adrian's group. In the chaos of screaming and pushing bodies, Adrian ducked behind a tree. The bark pressed sharply through his thin cloak, leaving temporary indents against his skin.
Nagini twisted disgustingly on his chest, tugging against his body unnaturally. Lovingly she danced, grotesquely pulling and persuading nausea to rise.
Adrian pulled out his wand, thankful he had it on him at all times. He held it flat in his palm, staring at the wood blankly before he focused enough to think.
"Point me…" He trailed off uncertain. Would Lutain be possible to cast? He wasn't sure if the spell could find a snake.
He would find the next best thing.
"Point me Bellatrix Lestrange," He mumbled under his breath, half expecting the spell to not work.
It did, and pointed him towards the chaos.
He should have known.
Adrian hadn't ever seen a battlefield.
He had dueled with Bellatrix, he had fought off various malicious curses and spells. If he was ever struck, she would speak the counterspell or heal it afterwards.
He had never ever considered that those targeted wouldn't be as fortunate.
It was a childish thought in hindsight, a innocent mindset that crashed to the ground the moment he saw the first body.
It was slashed open, hip to hip, and from the gash silvery purple organs spilled out like a ruptured pastry.
Adrian had never seen organs before. He had never ever thought about what they would look like even as he himself learned the same spell.
They were darker than he expected, slimy like an eel yet shimmery like Nagini in the dark.
They stank something warm and putrid, foul enough for Adrian's stomach to clench.
The man's eyes were glassy and clouded, but not to the obscure degree he had always imagined.
He stepped over the body, not even feeling the bloodied grass as it caressed his ankles and left red trails in wake. He kept walking, past smoldering tents and remnants of a tree.
Something far off in the distance exploded with a spectacular bang.
He could see them swarming, the Death Eaters. They moved as a unified front, black cloaks melding with the night while bone white masks stared hauntingly into the dark. They were experienced duelers, moving and casting, soundless except incantations. Some moved so fast, Adrian didn't even see the movement.
He was closer, and that's where he drew to a stop. They moved past him silently, not seeing his body shrouded by the trees.
He did not see Bellatrix, instead his weakness was not of human eyes. He was found by the heat scenting eyes of a mighty snake many times his size.
"Cerestes?" Nagini crooned, slithering across the battle torn grass faster than he had expected she could, "Little one!"
"Nagini?" Adrian asked back, feeling foolish at once. Who else would be of her size and actively seeking him out?
"Yes!" She hissed happily, reaching his hiding place and coiling around his lower legs in an embrace, "I have wand for you."
"What?' Adrian blurted, feeling far too slow for the rapidity of the situation, "How could you have my wand…"
And Nagini spasmed, jerking and wheezing sickly to vomit a brown bag roughly the size of a rabbit. It was covered in bile and other bodily fluids, slick and flattened by her muscles.
"Wand," Nagini agreed pleasantly, "And human scales! Come! Lutain awaits!"
"Lutain?" Adrian echoed numbly, unfastening the slimy bag to reach into its expanded depth. He felt his wand, holly and phoenix feather. The one void of the Ministry Trace. Although it mattered not, not with all of the magic in the air.
"Yes!" Nagini excitedly informed him, "Over with the mad lady. Across the fire, hurry! He misses you so, hurry Cerestes!"
Adrian almost argued that he wasn't Cerestes.
His hands felt the chilling material, sewn to the lower hem of his cloak. He pulled it out carefully, trailing fingers over its clasp and silken lining. It felt very heavy in his hands.
He pulled it on, tugging it over his head.
'What am I doing?' he thought hazily to himself, lethargically pushing his brain to think.
Nagini turned, slumping to the ground in preparation to move.
"Nagini?" Adrian spoke mutedly, his head buzzing loudly as he traced the wood of his wand.
She turned her head and glanced at him questioningly.
"I missed you," Adrian confessed, feeling very much like a child.
"I missed you too," She crooned back, her voice lilting and alluring as her scales reflected firelight, "Come, Cerestes."
....
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