Post by caladwen on Jan 10, 2008 20:45:25 GMT -5
Mercy looked at Tabitha, who was breathing unsteadily, with her wand directed at the Boggart, which was Shifting again. The other girl gave her a small smile, and turned to face her own fears.
Tabitha kept her eyes on the writhing, squirming mass before her. It must be confused, she thought. There seemed to be many shapes it was trying to assume at once.
Shaking her head, she focused solely on the thing at the end of her wand.
Suddenly, it stilled, and began to move slowly, as if she were a snake charmer and the mass a boa. Then, almost as suddenly, a head, arms, legs, a body erupted from the heart of the thing.
Tabitha eyed the figure, just as the horrible, fetid smell of rotting flesh rolled over her.
Halfheartedly, she attempted to cover her mouth and nose with the sleeve of her robe, but the stench penetrated even that.
She stood, rooted to the spot, as what she knew was a cadaver opened its empty eye socket and stared at her. Through her. At her very obvious shudder, the thing grinned.
It's teeth were so brown they looked wooden, and seemed to be the haven for countless small insects. She watched them weave in and out of the rotted bone in horror. Tabitha felt she might be sick.
She was unable to blink, unable to tear her eyes from the creature. Her breath was coming in ragged pants, the liquid fire of adrenaline spreading steadily through her veins, urging her to do something.
It was raising a hand, gesturing to her with two green-tipped fingers, beckoning to her. Every time it exhaled, a little puff of dust rose from it's mouth, and she imagined she could even hear the wheeze of the air passing through rotted lungs.
Tabitha drew an unsteady breath, enough to pass as deep, and tried to ignore the gag reflex that was triggered by the thing's horrible stink. She knew not where she gained the resolve to raise her wand, but it was already aloft in front of her, waiting for the word to be spoken.
"Ridiculous!" She managed to get out, but she knew before she had finished that it wouldn't work.
She closed her eyes, banishing the image of the thing from her mind and gathering the scattered threads of her courage. This time, when the word passed her lips, she could feel the tingle in her fingertips that said something was happening.
Her eyes flew open, and suddenly the corpse's eyes were marked over with large X's. Its face became less daunting and more cartoonish, its tongue stuck out of it's mouth at an odd angle. The sickly green flesh became a bright and brilliant shade of aquamarine.
And then she was laughing at it, and the group of people that she had just remembered were behind her were laughing at it, and she was once again in a roomy classroom.
The next person came forward to face their fear, and Tabitha stepped back into the group, smiling and looking pleased with herself.
She spotted the small group of students gathered around Mercy, checking if she was all right, and she went to join them.
