Hell Eyes

By Jezaray

Chapter Two: Strange but Beautiful

"Did you take any precautions?" James asked.

"Of course." Said Lily "Your sister helped me."

"Are they strong enough?"

"They should be."

"I am… so sorry… for not believing you."

When Harry finally landed on solid ground, he took a long, deep breath. It felt like all the air had been sucked out of him. His broom and invisibility cloak were gone, as were the glasses from his face. When he checked his pockets, he realized he has lost his wand as well. He squinted around, cursing quietly, but didn't find any of it. They must have been left on the other side of the portal.

There was no chance he was still at Hogwarts. The wind had mysteriously died down and he knelt on solid stone. Harry got off his scraped knees to stand. It was black as night, but a misty fog everywhere was glowing slightly. Looking over his shoulder, Harry saw no sign of a portal of any kind. Either the opening was invisible like on the other side, or it had closed. You think they'd mark an invisible portal, wouldn't you?

Harry took a deep breath and stepped backwards, hoping that the portal would take him back to the school. As terrible as the portal was, he wanted to return as soon as possible and fly back to his room, which he never should have left. But nothing happened. He walked in a few small circles to double check, but the portal simply wasn't there. Harry looked around him. There have to be people on this side who can help me. They were expecting Dumbledore and the students, after all.

Sure enough, somebody was standing there, in the mist, but without his glasses it was only a shadowy figure. It walked closer to him, and eventually Harry was able to make out some details. It was a woman. She seemed unsurprised to see him; Harry had the eerie feeling she had been waiting there. Her age was hard to tell, but Harry could see that she was beautiful, with long tawny hair. She wore a long simple dress with a cloak draped over her shoulders.

"How did you get here?" she demanded suddenly, breaking the silence.

"I accidentally went through a portal," Harry explained.

"Impossible," she responded immediately, almost rudely.

"Why?" Harry asked with a frown.

"There is no portal established here." She studied him intensely, and Harry felt a prickle of fear. This isn't my world. Who knows who she is?

"Follow me," she ordered, and turned slightly. Harry could see something large on her back. At first it looked like her hair went all the way down her back, in a large mass, and then he blinked a couple times and could tell that she had a large pair of feathery wings.

Harry gasped, feeling like Hagrid had punched him in the stomach. "You have wings!"

She frowned at him. "Yes. And you do not. Very peculiar." Her wings were mostly gold with touches of warm brown and reached from near the top of her head, to mid-calf. "I assume that the portal was meant to take you to the City of the Half-People. How you ended up here is a mystery. No portals can be established here."

"Half-People?" Harry asked.

"I am referring to those like you, without wings. Tell me, do Half-People have only half a soul, as it's rumored?"

"I don't think so," Harry said, flustered and feeling the need to defend himself. "People aren't what you see, the person is what's inside. Not having wings doesn't mean I don't have a soul. I know I'm real."

"How do you know, when your poor half life is all you've ever experienced?" She asked with her voice laced with pity.

Harry felt angry and insulted, but didn't know what to say.

"Follow me."

She started walking into the mist and Harry hurried to catch up. There wasn't much to see. Straight ahead the stone ground ended abruptly at a wall, a sheer cliff higher than he could see (which admittedly wasn't very far). As they approached, Harry could see dark cave openings, like doorways, right in the side of the cliff. The stone was steel gray and dense, but the arching doorways were perfectly shaped. Something about them made Harry uncomfortable. The air was still and lifeless. Do people live here?

The woman stopped near the doorways and Harry once again felt the full weight of her gaze.

"So can you help me get home?" Harry asked, folding his arms tightly.

Suddenly her eyes grew wide. After a long, uncomfortable pause, she said cryptically, "You are home."

Harry frowned again. "What?" Somewhere in the mist, he heard footsteps, but he couldn't tell how close or in which direction they were. The hair stood up on his arms. Somebody was out there, coming for them. "Of course not."

" Tell me— what's that around your neck?"

Harry looked down, surprised. Sure enough, there was something there… something that hadn't been there before. It wasn't pretty, or significant looking, but a rather simple chain fused to a dull rock.

"I wasn't wearing that before I went into the portal!" Harry protested, picking up the stone.

"Nevertheless, it is around your neck," she said matter-of-factly. Harry glared at her but before he had time to demand answers, she whistled loudly. The footsteps returned, loud and coming closer.

"Who's out there?" Harry said, wondering if he should run. But where to? Not in these creepy doorways, that's for sure.

Instead, the woman was the one to take several steps back. Her expression had changed entirely, from aloof condescension to disgust and …could it be fear?

"There is no where to run, Cursed," she said coldly. "We are in the depths of the Pit. Do you not know your own home?"

"I've never been here before in my life," Harry insisted. Everything had changed when she had seen the rock around his neck. He held it up. "Does this mean something?"

"It belongs to my people."

"It's very ugly," he said, deciding to take it off.

"Beauty is not its purpose." Her eyes widened when she saw what he was doing. "NO! Don't take it off."

Harry ripped it over his head forcefully and threw it at her feet. "If it's one of yours, then keep it. I just want to go home. Are you going to help me or not?"

She looked down at the amulet but made no move to pick it up. Just then a man ran out of the mist behind her, charging at Harry menacingly. Harry could see a pair of wings as a large dark mass behind him. Harry dodged him instinctively, and sprinted away, running straight into a different man appearing out of the mist. Harry didn't see him in time and was grabbed roughly by the shoulders.

"Careful!" The woman shouted behind him. "He's cursed!"

More hands grabbed him as other winged men circled around. Harry had no chance to free himself, there were too many of them, all twice his size. One of them twisted the collar of his shirt, choking him, and he gasped for air. His face felt like it was burning hot.

Everything went fuzzy and he drifted away.