Snape gave his wand a slight flick, and several ropes wound around the old witch again and again. He then carefully checked whether there were any gaps left.
"This should be enough," he murmured to himself, but his brow soon furrowed as his gaze fell on those cloudy eyes.
This old witch was far more cunning than she appeared. Who could say what tricks she might still have up her sleeve?
"Silencio, Tonguebind!" he added quickly.
A flash of light passed, and the witch's lips instantly sealed together.
Her eyes widened in fury, and she made a muffled, choking sound deep in her throat.
Snape's fingers absently stroked the wand as he paced slowly around the bound witch.
"Still..." he murmured, rubbing his chin, a hint of doubt flickering in his eyes. "What if you're capable of high-level wandless or silent casting?"
With that thought, he didn't hesitate.
"For safety's sake." he said coldly, raising his wand and pointing it at her arms.
Two sharp cracks followed. The old witch's body convulsed violently beneath the ropes, and she let out a muffled, throaty moan.
Her arms now hung at unnatural angles, utterly limp. She could no longer even twitch a finger.
Satisfied, Snape nodded and turned to release the girl.
Just then, a faint groan caught his attention.
The werewolf, still tangled in Nagini's coils, was slowly reverting to human form: the coarse black fur receded, the sharp claws withdrew, revealing a pale middle-aged man's face.
The great serpent had her jaws wide open, venomous fangs glinting as they aimed at the man's exposed neck.
"Nagini, don't bite!" Snape shouted.
Nagini's slit-pupilled eyes turned toward him.
Her tongue flicked as she loosened her coils and glided to Snape's feet, hissing softly.
The girl, terrified by both the Parseltongue and the surreal scene before her, stumbled backward and fell onto the ground.
Her eyes were round with shock, and her small body trembled uncontrollably.
"Thank you," Snape said gently, lowering his wand. "Don't be afraid, I'm sorry, I misunderstood you."
Even so, when his wand pointed toward her, the child flinched again.
"Relashio." He spoke the spell as softly as possible.
The ropes loosened at once. The girl stared at her freed hands in disbelief, then suddenly lunged toward the unconscious man on the ground.
"Daddy!" she cried, shaking his shoulders with all her might. "Daddy, wake up! Please wake up..."
Snape hurried over, kneeling beside them to check the man's wounds.
Nagini's fangs had left two deep, ragged holes in his shoulder, and blood flowed freely, soaking half his shirt.
"Move aside. Let me see." Snape raised his wand, and the tip glowed with a soft blue light. "Vulnera Sanentur! Episkey!"
He cast more than ten healing charms in quick succession, but the bleeding refused to stop.
Sweat formed on Snape's forehead, and the light of his wand flickered unsteadily. He racked his memory for every healing spell he knew, yet none could neutralize Nagini's venom.
"Nagini," he said quickly in Parseltongue, "is there any way to stop his bleeding?"
Nagini flicked her tongue, seeming to ponder.
After a moment, she turned and slid into the forest, her scales whispering softly against the fallen leaves.
Snape could only maintain the most basic healing enchantments while keeping alert for danger.
The old witch still writhed faintly nearby, producing garbled, muffled sounds.
Time passed slowly. The last glow of sunset vanished, and night crept through the forest, bringing a biting chill.
The girl's sobs dwindled into quiet, broken gasps, and at last only silent tears remained.
She knelt beside her father, clutching his gradually cold hand, her small face deathly pale.
Snape's heart sank. If Nagini didn't return soon...
Just as the last thread of twilight was about to fade, a familiar rustle stirred in the underbrush.
Two green eyes gleamed in the darkness as Nagini emerged, carrying an unusual plant in her mouth.
Snape took it from her carefully, a herb he had never seen before: oval leaves serrated at the edges, tiny yellow-green blossoms exuding a faint fragrance, and a red-and-green stem glistening with dew.
He quickly ground the herb with magic and applied the pulp to the man's wounds.
The bleeding slowed almost immediately, and the blackish poison around the bite marks began to fade.
"Thank you," Snape breathed in relief, gently patting Nagini's head. The great serpent coiled quietly at his feet.
When the man let out a faint groan, the girl's head jerked up. Her lips trembled, but no sound came; tears streamed down her cheeks again.
Snape lit a campfire and conjured a simple stretcher with Transfiguration.
He moved the man closer to the fire and checked the wound again, the herb was working, and the man's breathing had steadied.
At that moment, Snape's stomach rumbled loudly.
He suddenly realized he hadn't eaten anything all day except that bit of charred fish.
Nagini raised her head at the sound, glanced at him, then slithered off into the bushes again...
After a while, the girl sat quietly hugging her knees. Then she got up and ran to the witch, fumbling through the old woman's robes.
Seeing this, Snape approached and helped turn the witch over, eliciting a muffled grunt of fury from her.
The girl pulled a necklace from the witch's neck, a string with a blood-red canine tooth, and also found a roll of yellowed parchment, which she handed to Snape.
"She used this parchment to write things down," the girl said. "And this necklace, she used it to control the werewolf."
Snape accepted both items.
Unfolding the parchment, he saw strange symbols and cryptic incantations, clearly records of the witch's previous experiments.
His eyes skimmed the scrawled lines, and the more he read, the more disturbed he became. The cruelty of these dark magic experiments far exceeded anything he'd imagined.
The fang in his hand still carried a lingering stench of blood, glinting with a faint, eerie light. Judging by its size, it must have belonged to a large werewolf.
"Thank you, little one," he said, sealing both items with a charm and tucking them safely into his inner pocket. "I'll keep these for now."
Snape then considerately rolled the witch back over, face down in the dirt.
After some time, Nagini returned with a freshly killed muntjac deer.
Seeing her, Snape got to his feet and began pacing in a circle around them.
"Protectus Totalis... Protego Maxima... Muffliato..." he muttered, wand raised. "Hmm, no Muggle-Repelling Charm, we could use one of them finding us right now."
Then, clumsily but efficiently, Snape prepared the deer, removing all traces of blood.
"Do you know how to roast meat?" he asked, turning to the girl.
She nodded lightly, the firelight dancing over her dirt-streaked face.
The flames crackled. The girl roasted the deer meat on a branch, fat sizzling as it dripped into the fire.
"Hey," Snape said suddenly, "what's your name? Can you tell me your story?"
"Ah!" The girl flinched, nearly dropping the stick into the flames.
She glanced timidly at Snape, then at the witch nearby, who was still writhing faintly but unable to make a sound.
"My name's Anna... It was... winter," she whispered. "Mum and Dad brought me here on a trip... then the witch caught us..."
Through her halting words, Snape pieced together the truth: the witch was a dark sorceress studying how to control werewolves.
When she ran out of test subjects, she began capturing ordinary people to create new ones.
"Mum got bitten by one of her werewolves," Anna's tears splashed onto the ground, "and she died during one of the experiments... Dad can sometimes control the change, but not always..."
Snape's pupils contracted. That was an extraordinary revelation. He'd never heard of a werewolf capable of transforming at will, let alone obeying a human master.
The werewolf problem the magical world had struggled with for centuries, progress had been made here, in this forsaken forest? He found himself studying the unconscious man more closely.
"Would you like some?" Anna's timid voice broke his thoughts.
She held out a skewer of roasted venison toward Nagini, hesitating.
To Snape's surprise, Nagini delicately bit off the meat, pulling it from the stick and swallowing it gracefully.
"You just don't like fish, do you?" Snape asked in Parseltongue, earning a disdainful shake of her head.
Anna froze again, frightened by the hissing speech, and the stick slipped from her fingers onto the ground.
"It's alright," Snape said gently, bending to pick it up. He cleaned it and handed it back. "I was only asking her if it tasted good."
Anna nodded faintly and returned to the fire, tending the meat while glancing anxiously at her father.
"You'll eat the next piece," Snape told her. "After that, teach me how to roast meat properly."
He couldn't help twitching his lips at the thought of his own disastrous cooking skills.
Night deepened. Snape let Anna sleep by the fire while he kept watch. Nagini coiled protectively at his feet.
At dawn, faint noises woke Snape from his light doze. The fire had burned to ashes.
Someone was calling nearby.
"Nagini, hide for now."
After a brief pause, Snape told her to retreat into the bushes. He pulled Anna close and carefully lifted the protective enchantment from the camp.
As the spell dissolved, he saw an owl circling overhead, and behind it, a brightly colored flying carpet.
He recognized the figures aboard: Eileen, Lily, and Mr. Weasley.
"I'm here!" he shouted, waving.
The owl folded its wings and swooped down, landing beside him, a small parchment tied to its leg.
Before he could remove it, the carpet came rushing toward them.
"Severus!"
Eileen nearly fell off the carpet as she stumbled toward him, trembling hands running over his face and shoulders, checking for injuries.
Her eyes were red from sleeplessness, her hair in disarray.
Lily stood quietly nearby, her green eyes full of worry. She looked pale and drawn, dark circles visible beneath her eyes.
"Merlin's beard!" Mr. Weasley panted. "We've been looking for you everywhere! The Albanian Ministry, bunch of bureaucrats! They just logged the report and told us to wait!"
They had tried everything, even local seers, but those charlatans only muttered riddles.
In the end, it was Lily who remembered an ancient owl-tracking charm, because Snape would never refuse a letter from them.
"Yesterday, the owl hovered for ages over a pile of rocks," Lily said, still shaken. "Then it suddenly turned this way. Accio... we followed it all night."
Warmth welled up in Snape's chest, tightening his throat.
"I'm fine," he said softly, then turned. "But someone else needs help."
At that, Mr. Weasley walked over to the old witch, still lying on the cold ground.
"Wait," Snape called quickly. "She's an enemy, don't undo the spells on her."
With Mr. Weasley's help, Snape lifted Anna's still-unconscious father and the witch onto the flying carpet.
Eileen's eyes never left her son, as if afraid he might vanish again.
When everyone was aboard, Snape stood at the forest's edge and called softly in Parseltongue, "Come out, Nagini."
The great serpent slowly extended her head from the bushes.
"Severus!" Eileen leapt down again, wand raised defensively in front of him.
"Don't worry," Snape said quietly, drawing her aside. "She saved my life, she's my friend now."
"Come with me," he said, crouching to meet Nagini's eyes. "At least now, you'll have someone who can speak to you."
"Alright..."
After a long pause, a faint hiss came from her throat, barely intelligible but clear enough.
"Then," Snape said softly, "don't be afraid. I'll cast a spell to make you smaller."
Nagini nodded slightly.
Though they already knew Snape could speak Parseltongue, Eileen and Lily were still stunned by the sight. Mr. Weasley kept adjusting his slipping glasses in disbelief.
"Reducio."
Under the spell's effect, Nagini's twelve-foot body shrank rapidly to less than two feet.
Then she slithered up Snape's sleeve, poking her small head out at his collar and gently brushing his cheek.
"Let's go," Snape said as he climbed onto the carpet. "We're going home."