Basilisk Eyes

Chapter 113: Red, red

"Once I figure out how to control my arms, I'll be flying loop-de-loops around you!" Tony crowed. "You just wait!"

"Aw, you're a fire crab—full of hot air!" Arig countered.

The group from Montmorency was standing in line for the breakfast buffet and Tony and Arig started laughing and shoving each other as their playful bantering escalated. Harry was standing behind them, laughing along with them at the same time that he was trying to avoid getting tromped upon.

"Harry's the one you need to watch out for—he was outflying us all... you just wait and see!" Arig proclaimed. "He's going to give Slytherins a run for their knuts...

Apparently that hit a nerve. Harry's staff gave a warning and he stepped back, but not in time and he released his tray trying to keep from toppling over as a torso slammed into him preceded by elbows and crutches. He stumbled backward, twisting, crying out, and trying to right himself. His knees connected painfully with the metal of Mei's wheelchair as he fell and encountered the sleek surface of Mei's scales under his hands. A battering ram of hands shoved him off and he fell to the floor, tangled in Arig's crutches and limbs.

"Sorry, Harry," Mei shouted. "I just reacted. I didn't mean to... Tony! You troll's bollocks!"

There was a crackle and a boom and Tony was shrieking and thrashing around—it was a terrifying sound. Harry's staff sparked against his hand and he dropped it and his wand burned white hot pins along his arm. Smells erupted around them—the breakfast smells that Harry had been breathing in deeply while they were in line were now stronger and there was something else—something burning. Something sickeningly sweet and charred.

"Mei, Mei! Stop it!" Arig shouted from underneath Harry.

Harry launched himself toward Mei—he flicked out his wand, willing himself to hold onto it even though it pierced his palm like a branch of stinging nettles—shouting "Aguamenti!" and a fire-hose force of water shot out of it that splattered back against him as it hit Mei.

Tony's anguished cries turned to whimpers as he thudded to the ground.

"Finite your water, Potter!" Mei yelled. "It's over... that worked."

Harry ended the charm and summoned his staff that he'd dropped at some point during the melee. It snapped into his outstretched hand. He winced. His palm stung—it was burned, but not as badly as his wand hand. He was crouching—up on one knee, the other leg still tangled with Arig and he leaned against his staff as he tried to extricate himself, pain slicing through his hand as he grasped his staff. He tried to push aside his own pain.

"Arig, you all right?" Harry asked.

"Yeah. Just get off my leg so I can stand up," Arig huffed.

Gemma's hands were on Harry's shoulders steadying him and questioning him as he pulled his leg out from the pile and stood up.

"Thanks," he signed wincing as he moved his fingers and then jerked trying to right himself as he stepped in something squashy.

"What was that?" he said as he tried to wipe it off his foot, but stepped in more, lurching again as he stepped in something crunchy.

Gemma signed "food" on his arm and Harry sighed. The breakfast buffet had exploded all over them.

His stomach growled in response to the breakfast aromas that were now wafting around him from every surface. The burned smell lingered as well making him feel nauseated.

There goes breakfast.

Harry heard Healer Jordan's distinctive tread approaching them through the clamor of the other residents who were emerging from stunned silence into action. She went right to Tony and he heard her quietly assessing his injuries. Harry cringed as he thought about the stinging in his own limbs and remembered how Tony's prosthetic arms had rings of his wand imbedded in them.