Mungo nodded, thought for a moment, then cleared his throat.
"Red eyes hath shone,
Valuable is my egg,
I have plenty of backbone,
But lack a good leg."
Fred nodded and titled his head back, closing his eyes. "Red eyes" was no good; there were hundreds of magical creatures with red eyes. A valuable egg...he'd come back to that once he'd narrowed down the list. The last two lines must mean some sort of snake or serpent.
The first creature that came to mind was a Basilisk, but he wasn't entirely sure about that. For one thing, it was all well and good to imagine a massive snake with glowing red eyes, but he thought he remembered Harry firmly saying they were yellow. Besides, Lupin had told them that a Basilisk is grown from a chicken egg hatched under a toad--not particularly valuable.
Setting that aside, Fred thought about the eggs. He and George had experimented with a lot of materials, but some things were too valuable for them to afford. What were those?
He remembered George saying something about dragon eggs, years ago... Now a dragon Keeper, Fred knew all about dragons and their eggs, but none of the ones in the Preserve had particularly valuable eggs (except the Norwegian Ridgebacks, but those were only valuable because Charlie said he didn't want nutters like Hagrid getting a hold of them again). Suddenly, he remembered--Chinese Fireball eggs were valuable in sorcery.
Krum had fought a Chinese Fireball during the Triwizard Tournament. It had been very long, and had a few spindly legs...and several valuable eggs.
Fred grinned. That had to be it.
Suddenly, however, an errant memory drifted back to him. George's voice, talking about their latest Love Potion... We haven't been doing anything wrong, we just don't have the right ingredients. We need some Ashwinder eggs, I keep telling you, Fred--
His eyes snapped open. Lupin had taught them about Ashwinders. They were serpents, with red eyes and grey bodies, and (he had added with a slight smile) their eggs were used in Love Potions. We found an Ashwinder nest at Grimmauld Place, when we were cleaning, and Mum told us to freeze the eggs and then give them to her, and Sirius said we could sell them to the Apothecary in Diagon Alley...
"It's an Ashwinder," he said aloud without thinking about it. "It has to be."
"Is that your guess?" Mungo asked gravely.
Fred bit his lip, a very anxious feeling beginning in the pit of his stomach. He cast one last, fleeting thought at the Chinese Fireball, dismissed it, and nodded. "It is."
Mungo gazed at him for a long moment, then smiled. "You are correct."
All the air in his lungs whooshed out in a huge sigh of relief. He felt drained suddenly, as if everything he had experienced up to this point had just caught up with him, now that he had done it.
It slowly hit him. He had done it. He was going to see Hippocrates; he was going to cure Matilda. Shakily, he rose to his feet. "Thank you. Where can I find the portrait?"
Mungo gathered his robes around him and stood from the chair he had been painted in. "I'll show you." Turning, he stepped out of his portrait and after a moment appeared in the next, striding puposefully past its occupant towards the stairs.
"We should be careful," Fred said quietly, walking beside him. "Someone hit me with an Imperius Curse earlier--"
Mungo stopped and looked curiously at him. "An Imperius Curse? Did you see them?"
Fred shook his head. "No, there wasn't anyone there. Not that I could see."
The old man chuckled slightly. "Did it tell you to drop your wand?"
Amazed that he was taking an illegal curse so lightly, Fred nodded slowly.
"It was just security. Their job is to disarm intruders. When you broke the curse--you did break it, didn't you?--I assume they followed you to watch, and then realized you had a right to be here." Mungo looked supremely pleased. "One of my better ideas. This way."
Pushing the security system from his mind, Fred followed the old man up the winding stairs to the fourth floor, apprehension growing with every step. A thousand what-ifs were rushing through his mind like a river--what if it doesn't work, what if he doesn't come, what if there is no cure?
They emerged onto the fourth floor, and Fred felt his heart clench as they passed the ward where George lay. He was suddenly struck by an overpowering urge to either go in and see him or fall to the floor weeping. Firmly deciding to do neither, Fred shook himself and followed Mungo to the end of the hallway, where a single-paned window glowed with clouded moonlight. There was a strange, unreal quality to it, and Fred found himself holding his breath.
Five floors below, in the entry room, the clock began to toll midnight.
The clouds shifted, and pale light bathed the corridor.
Fred gasped. The silver light on the glass began to solidify into opaqueness, and indistinct shapes and colors began to appear in the white background. The window is the portrait, he realized with shock.
A figure slowly began to take shape, and like a mist clearing, the remaining moonlight on the painting vanished, revealing a silver-haired and bearded old man with ancient and wise eyes.
"Good evening, Hippocrates," Mungo said in a tone of utmost respect.
The great Healer turned towards the portrait's voice, and smiled gently. "And a good evening to you, Master Bonham." His grey eyes flickered onto Fred, and narrowed slightly. "And who is this?"
Fred stepped forward, feeling oddly humbled in the presence of such a legend. "Fred Weasley," he said, trying to match the respect Mungo had shown in his voice. "I've come to ask if you could heal someone for me. The...the Healers don't know what to do."
Hippocrates tilted his head slightly. "What has happened to this friend?"
"We work at a dragon preserve in Romania, and she's come down with a pox... They've seen it before, and they say there's no cure--"
Hippocrates held up a hand for silence. "She?" he asked, in a resonatingly deep voice that reminded Fred of Dumbledore.
"My partner, Matilda Wardley."
"Your friend?" The Healer's voice was penetrating.
Fred didn't see what the ancient wizard could mean. "Yes..."
Hippocrates and Mungo exchanged a glance, and then Hippocrates nodded slowly. "I will see this woman."
They strode through the corridors in silence, the two portraits and an apprehensive Fred, until they reached the ward. Unlocking it with a tap of his wand, Fred stepped inside and saw the two Healers appear in the portrait above Matilda's bed.
She looked even worse than she had the last time he had seen her. Her skin was green, and he could hear her breath rattling in her chest as she slept. She looked like she had aged years since he had last seen her happy and healthy--and it felt like a year since he had slept. Suddenly he was so exhausted, with fear and worry and plain overwork, that he felt as if he was about to faint. He took a few deep breaths, and after a moment took Matilda's hand in his. It felt cold and frail, and dread crept into his heart. "Can you do something for her?" he managed to ask Hippocrates.
The Healer was studying her closely, and Fred's question hung in the air. Fred waited patiently, exhausted but hanging on for the Healer's words.
The silence dragged on, until finally Hippocrates spoke. "Yes."
Hope began to rise again, and he clenched Matilda's hand slightly. "What do you need?"
"Hellebore, bloodroot, and aconite."
Fred's chest constricted. "Those are poisons."
"Yes," Hippocrates said simply.
Taking a deep breath, Fred rose from his seat, almost regretfully dropping Matilda's hand. When he returned with the poisons, Hippocrates gave him several precise instructions on cutting and crushing, and when he had finished he was left with a small cup of a dark, almost black liquid.
"She must drink it," the ancient Healer instructed him. "Wake her gently. She is very ill and must be handled carefully."
Fred sat beside her and gently propped her up against him. "'Til?" he said quietly. "'Til, wake up."
A moment later, Matilda's eyelids fluttered open, and she began to cough, her entire body shaking with the force of it. "F-Fred?" she managed to say, her slightly unfocused eyes gazing at his face.
"'Til, I did it," he whispered, unable to keep the triumph from his voice. "Drink this." Lifting the cup to her lips, he held her steady as she drank the strange potion.
All at once a strange convulsion seized her body, and he felt a flush of heat spread through her. Her face paled sharply, her whole body shaking madly, and then suddenly it stopped and she fell back into his arms, limp and still.
No! Horrified, Fred threw the cup away in disgust and pulled her close to him. "'Til--Matilda--say something--"
Agonized seconds crept by, but she didn't move. Fred lifted a disbelieving face to the two Healers in their portrait, unable to believe that their 'cure' had killed her--
Hippocrates smiled softly.
A weak voice whispered, "Fred?"
His head snapped down and he felt a wild joy sweep through him as Matilda gazed up at him in confusion. Her face, though still pale, was no longer green and he could hear her breathing long, deep breaths. Her dark eyes, clouded before with sickness and pain, were clear, though exhausted.
"'Til, you're okay!" he gasped, pulling her up into an embrace. "Thank God..."
"I feel fine," she whispered, "just so tired..." Remembering, he laid her down against the pillows, arranging them to a more comfortable position with a lightness in his heart that wasn't in his exhausted body.
"Sleep well, 'Til," he said softly. She smiled faintly, her eyes beginning to close, and as he gazed down at her a thought came to him. He had moved mountains for her, trying to make sure that she would be all right... Curiously, he leaned down and gently kissed her, and was surprised by how right it felt.
"Goodnight, Fred," she murmured as he leaned back, and her eyes closed with a smile on her face.
"Goodnight, 'Til," he said quietly, touching her cheek lightly. When her breathing was slow and regular, he added in a whisper, "I love you," and stood to go.
The two ancient Healers were waiting outside as he left the ward and locked the door with his wand. "Thank you," he said quietly, turning to them. "I'll tell the Healers in the morning about the potion, and then we can go back to Romania, and heal my brother Charlie and the others--" Something stuck about that sentence, jogging a thought in the back of his mind, and he broke off, frowning slightly.
"No thanks are required," Hippocrates said courteously, bowing. "I am merely glad that this old man could help save lives once again."
Fred nodded, still trying to think of what it could be...that he was forgetting...
As Hippocrates and Mungo began to walk away, it suddenly hit him.
My brother...
"Hippocrates, wait!"
The old man turned, eyebrows lifted slightly. "Is there something else?"
A wild, desperate feeling like hope had ignited in his chest. "There's--" His voice cracked, and he tried again. "There's one other thing. My--my brother, George--he's upstairs, and..." He hesitated, knowing that this was a fool's hope but that it was worth a shot. "The Healers say there's no cure for him, but..."
That same gentle smile broke over the old Healer's face, and he nodded. "Take me to your brother."
Fred couldn't stop himself from trembling. This is stupid, George can't be healed, why are you wasting your time? he repeated over and over in his mind, but he couldn't stop his heart from wishing, hoping, believing that Hippocrates could help--
"This is it," he heard his own voice saying, and drawing a clever pocketknife from his pocket, he unlocked the door.
Passing a slumbering Lockhart and the Longbottoms, he quietly conjured and Silenced a curtain stand around the bed that he had been trying not to think about for months now.
George was thinner and paler than he used to be, and he twitched as he slept, his brow knitted in fearful dreams. Fred felt his heart constrict as he sank into the chair (that was always there, always just for him) beside his brother's bed. As always, the tears came unbidden to his eyes as he remembered how they used to laugh--
"What happened to him?" Hippocrates asked softly.
"Tortured by the Cruciatus Curse," Fred said shortly. "I don't know if you--"
"It is ancient, evil magic," Hippocrates whispered. "The spell may be Latin, but it was invented long before that. I know of it." The old man's eyes held ancient grief as he gazed down at George. "Awaken him."
Fred reached forward and touched his brother's shoulder. "George," he managed to say around the sudden lump in his throat, "wake up."
His brother's eyes, once as bright and blue and twinkling with mischief as his own, were dull and uncomprehending as they slowly opened. He stared up at the portrait, then noticed Fred. A tiny smile of recognition dawned on his face as he sat up and reached to touch Fred's face and the sudden tears there.
"There is a spell," Hippocrates told him in that same, saddened whisper. "You must draw upon your own memories of him, and if it is strong enought, the magic will carry your strength of thought to him. Phasmatis memoria."
Closing his eyes and taking his brother's hand in his right and his wand in his left, Fred summoned all his memories of his twin, feeling hot tears burn his eyes as he remembered flying, Quidditch, the shop--
"Phasmatis memoria."
A white light began to encompass the two of them, and Fred's eyes opened to gaze through the white nimbus at his brother's face. George's eyes were at first confused, then they slowly widened with amazement. After a few moments, the light began to fade, and George closed his eyes, shaking his head slightly. Fred, feeling even more drained and exhausted than before, slumped forward in his chair, his eyes desperately fixed on his twin, his last chance for sanity.
George's eyes flickered open, unfocused, and after a moment they settled on Fred.
A happiness so profound he felt his heart would burst filled him as his brother grinned at him. "Hey, Fred."
Somewhere, outside, the sun began to rise.
Moving Mountains by Cherry and Phoenix Feather
Chapter Notes: Thanks to my most excellent guide, Rhae, for being incredibly awesome not just for one Gauntlet, but two.