"How long have you known?" gasped Harry, playing for time since Ron and Hermione would have heard his scream and should be dashing to his aid any second.
Nott's face took on a sneering expression. "Well, I wondered from the start, what with the Parseltongue and all, and the way you always seemed to glance at your ring --new, isn't it?-- as you cast spells, but I was sure when I saw you talking to those first-years at the party. No magic then, no need to brandish your wand, and you still looked down at your ring or at your pet snake every time you tried to say something in Parseltongue. Too bad your little familiar isn't with you now, isn't it, Potter?"
Yeah, too bad, Harry thought, his mind frantically racing. Where were Ron and Hermione? They should be here by now. Unless Nott had arranged for them to be waylaid... but no, Nott wouldn't have known that he'd find Harry alone outside that Quidditch shop. He couldn't have set this up in advance...
He could, however, cast a competent silencing charm, Harry suddenly realised as he cradled his mangled hand. That must be it. He'd turned away to glance back at the alley, and Nott had cast a spell while Harry wasn't looking. Ron and Hermione had never heard him. They didn't know he needed help.
They were probably still too caught up in each other to even realise how long he'd been gone.
Think, think! Harry told himself. He'd gotten out of tighter spots than this before. He took a step backwards, toward the street.
"I don't think so. One more step and I cast Petrificus, Potter."
Keep him talking, Harry thought, pain seeming to wash through him in waves. Ron and Hermione will stop kissing sometime and come looking for you... "I thought I could trust you!"
"Gullible. So gullible." Nott kept his wand trained on Harry, even as he leaned against a building. "Draco Malfoy may have lost his mind, and your damned father as well, but you're the enemy, Potter. And there are those in Slytherin who haven't forgotten it."
"So what's your plan? Deliver me to Voldemort so you can lick his boots for the rest of your life? Draco was smart enough to want better than that for himself."
"The plan," sneered Nott, "involves a Portkey. I might not have been able to get Draco off Hogwarts' grounds, but Lucius will still pay plenty for you, I'll wager."
Harry's stomach churned with fear, even as he shouted -- hopefully loudly enough to break through Nott's silencing wards, "I'm not touching any Portkey!"
"Oh, yes you are." Nott stepped away from the wall, his wand levelled squarely on Harry's heart. "Petrificus is it, then."
"Oh, fine!" snapped Harry, his mind turning cartwheels by then. A snake, he needed a snake... But he had one, didn't he, if he could just get to it... Damn, why was he still wearing his jacket? It wasn't that chilly out! "Just hand it to me."
Nott laughed. "And get close enough for you to hit me? Right."
"Then toss it on the ground at my feet and I'll pick it up! Anything but Petrificus, Nott. I'd rather not be body-bound to face the likes of Lucius Malfoy."
Nott laughed again, the sound this time evil. "You can't even best me, Potter! You don't stand a chance against him, either. This isn't Samhain when you have your father to rescue you!"
"Yeah, yeah," said Harry, wishing Nott would just shut up and throw the Portkey toward him. Whatever happened, he had to avoid the threatened Petrificus. Because if he couldn't move, he couldn't solve this problem of needing a snake. He had to have a cover so Nott wouldn't see him reach toward the zipper holding his jacket closed.
"One wrong move and you'll be in a full body-bind," threatened Nott as he used his free hand to fish something from his pocket. The Portkey was wrapped inside a handkerchief. Nott flicked it just so, and the Portkey tumbled from it to land on the dirt between them.
A double-thick Galleon. Harry cynically wondered how many of those Lucius had been willing to pay to get his hands on Draco.
Nott's wand hand went tense as Harry began to lean over towards the Portkey.
Harry moved his left hand to his zipper as he bent, then yanked it all the way down. The most welcome sight in the world greeted him. Golden buttons decorated with a fierce lion, but they were a gateway to a snake. Three quick taps and he'd transformed the buttons to silver ones boasting a Slytherin snake.
The fingers of his right hand were curled in like claws, now. Harry wasn't even sure magic would flow through them, so he used his left, snapping it up, wand and all, and firing off hexes as Snape had taught him out in Devon. Disarm first, then keep your enemy from fleeing the scene.
Expelliarmus.
"Lose that stick in your hand!" Harry screamed in Parseltongue.
He felt the magic ricochet through him and stream out through his hand and into his wand, which amplified it into a huge sweep of power that emerged like a lightning blast gone berserk. Even before the burst had left his wand, though, Harry was already following one spell with another, just like he'd practiced with his father. The Jelly-Legs jinx. Only, snakes didn't know a thing about jelly, so he'd had to come up with something else for his Parseltongue version.
"Legs like broken eggs!"
Both spells hit Nott at almost the same instant. The boy was knocked off his feet and propelled several feet back.
He ended up knocking into a pile of cauldrons someone had stacked between the buildings. They fell all over him and for a moment, Harry couldn't see Nott, though he heard rustling noises as though the other boy was trying to get up.
Then the air all around him was filled with screaming. Awful, horrified screaming. Hysterical screaming.
Harry kept his wand trained on the source of the shrieks as he walked to the scattered cauldrons and kicked them aside.
"What did you do to me, what did you do to me, what did you do?" screamed Nott, flailing to sit up.
Harry ignored the question long enough to be sure that Nott's wand was gone. Probably it was gone forever, considering his Expelliarmus had been a wanded charm.
Harry kicked aside a few more cauldrons to be sure the wand hadn't just fallen to the side where Nott could reach it.
And that was when he saw what he'd done, when he understood why Nott was still screaming his question.
The boy's legs ended at the knee; his trouser legs lay flat after that. Or not flat, exactly. There was something inside the fabric, something jagged and uneven. Harry trailed his gaze along the seam and when he saw the rest, he felt like his heart leapt up into his throat and got stuck there.
Broken eggshells were spilling out of both Nott's shoes. Broken eggshells coated with bits of yolk and pools of filmy mucus.
His feet were nowhere to be seen.
Legs like broken eggs, Harry thought, sickened. It hadn't produced anything but the usual on Ron and Hermione and Draco, but this time he'd used a wanded charm, and the magic had taken him literally.
"What did you do to me--" Nott was still screaming.
Harry pocketed his wand to be sure he didn't send magic through it again. No way did he want to be taken literally when he cast Sleep-like-the-dead on Nott. As soon as the boy was Stupefied, Harry went to get Ron and Hermione.
Who were still kissing, and hadn't heard a thing.
They forgot all about themselves and the bliss of newfound love, however, the instant they took in Harry's pale features and charred hand. Hermione was the first to react, rushing over to him. "Where else are you hurt? Harry?"