Snape sat on the ground, frowning as he tore off a piece of the charred fish and chewed reluctantly.
"If only magic could conjure butterbeer and steak," he muttered under his breath, poking the half-eaten fish with the tip of his wand in distaste.
"Nagini," he suddenly said, turning toward the enormous serpent who had her eyes closed in apparent rest, "how long have you been in Albania?"
The serpent's vertical pupils flared faintly in the darkness.
Nagini slowly lifted her head, her tongue flickering, but only a few hoarse, fragmented syllables came out.
Snape set down the fish, cleaned the dust off his fingers with a quick charm, and shifted position so that he faced the serpent directly, ready for conversation.
"Do you... still remember how to speak?" he asked slowly and clearly, drawing out every syllable on purpose, his gaze fixed on Nagini's reaction.
But she merely let out a few unintelligible hisses.
Snape tried a mixture of gestures and words to communicate, only to find that apart from a few simple sounds, she mostly just stared at him without responding.
Still, there was one encouraging thing: although Nagini could not form complex sentences, she seemed able to understand part of what he said.
Perhaps it was because she had been alone too long, Snape thought. Perhaps Nagini was on the verge of losing the very ability to speak.
"I'm Severus Snape," he said, nodding as though to guide her patiently. "Do you know how we came to be here?"
Nagini's tail twitched restlessly, sweeping a small pile of pebbles into the darkness.
Snape sighed and looked straight into her eyes. "Take me out of here, will you?"
The serpent was silent for a while, her tail beating the ground in a slow, heavy rhythm.
Then she began to move, sliding toward the deeper parts of the cave, down a narrow tunnel.
Snape quickly rose to his feet, the tip of his wand glowing faintly as he followed close behind.
The passageway grew ever tighter, forcing him to turn sideways at several points to get through. After taking three turns, the sound of rushing water reached his ears.
When they finally reached the end of the tunnel, a furious underground river lay before them. The black water slammed against jagged rocks with a deafening roar.
Nagini stopped on a ledge by the water and turned her head toward Snape.
From the look in her eyes, Snape somehow understood what she meant.
"Hmm..." he muttered, frowning as cold spray hit his face, forcing him to raise his voice to be heard over the torrent. "You mean... we're supposed to swim through that?"
Nagini gave no answer. She only flicked her tongue once and began sliding into the water.
"All right, all right," Snape said hastily, stepping forward as she entered the river.
He cast the Bubble-Head Charm at once, sealing his head in a transparent sphere of air.
Then, hesitating a moment, he reached out and placed his hand on Nagini's cold, smooth scales.
The expected resistance never came. She merely turned her head slightly, fixing him with her vertical pupils before her tongue flicked lightly over his wrist, as if urging him to hurry.
Snape carefully tucked his wand inside his inner pocket, making sure it was secure against the current. Then he gripped Nagini's slick body tightly and pressed himself close. "Let's hope you don't throw me off halfway."
The next instant, the world spun. Nagini plunged into the raging current, dragging him with her, and the icy water swallowed them whole.
Outside the bubble there was only endless blackness. He could feel the power of Nagini's muscles contracting and stretching in his grasp, her body slicing through the torrent with effortless grace.
The current battered against him, rocks scraping his robes.
More than once Nagini was nearly caught by sudden whirlpools, forcing Snape to tighten his hold around her even more.
The darkness above seemed infinite. The air inside the bubble turned heavy and foul, droplets forming along its inner wall. Snape's lungs began to burn.
Just as suffocation crept in, a faint glimmer appeared above.
Nagini suddenly surged forward. They shot out of the tunnel like an arrow, hurled by the current into a calm, moonlit pool.
"Pff, ha!"
Snape broke the surface, ripping away the distorted bubble and gasping for air that smelled of moss and wet stone.
He collapsed on the rocky bank, trembling, and cast a Drying Charm over himself.
"Nagini?" he called between coughs, looking toward the water.
The serpent was a few yards away, stretching her massive body, droplets sliding down her scales like strings of pearls.
Snape noticed several shallow cuts on her belly, dark red blood trailing down and spreading into the pool.
"Come here," he said. Nagini swam toward him. "You're hurt."
He drew his wand, but she instantly recoiled half a yard, the scales on her neck lifting slightly, a clear sign of tension in serpents.
Snape froze, then slowly changed his movement, raising both hands in a placating gesture.
"It's just healing," he said softly. "Episkey!"
The wounds along Nagini's body closed rapidly under the charm, leaving behind only faint pale lines.
After a short rest, the sweltering heat of the Albanian forest pressed down on them. Sweat soaked through Snape's robes.
Looking up, he saw a canopy of thick leaves splitting the sunlight into shards that danced on the forest floor.
"Thank you," Snape said between breaths, glancing at Nagini as she shook off the water. "But now, how do we get out of this forest, to somewhere with people?"
At the word people, Nagini's body twisted uneasily, and she hissed a warning.
After struggling in vain to reason with her through looks and gestures, Snape finally gave up and turned to one of the oldest methods of magical navigation, the wand-pointing divination.
"All right then, looks like it's up to me." He laid his wand flat on his palm. "Point me the way."
The wand spun a few times before settling in a single direction, behind him.
Snape pocketed it and said slowly to the shadowy outline of Nagini hiding among the brush, "Stay near me, but not too close. Keep watch, all right?"
Traveling through the forest was even harder than the caves. One hand holding his wand aloft, the other gripping a magically sharpened stick, Snape hacked through the vines and thorny branches blocking his way.
He saw no more of Nagini, but he could sense her presence from the soft rustling nearby or from the moments when the birds abruptly fell silent.
After what felt like hours, he finally stumbled upon a faint path, so ancient it might not have been used for centuries.
As he pushed aside the vines, the setting sun cast streaks of gold and crimson through the trees, and in that flickering light he froze.
There before him stood a hunched old woman, wiping the sweat from the brow of a little girl wearing a red velvet cap.