IV: The Whispering Book, or, How to Vanquish Your Enemies, or, Comfort Given for Sadness Shared
Harry woke to the sound of running water. He peered down the corridor to see a shower curtain, behind which steam rose in a steady plume towards the ceiling. Hermione was sitting next to it, casting Aguamentis and heating charms into a series of pipes that ran behind the curtain. It seemed the girls had built a shower while he'd been sleeping. Harry was going to get up and investigate, but his attention turned to the stack of food they'd brought back yesterday instead. Deciding that breakfast in his bunk wasn't a bad idea, he lazily summoned a few scones from the top of the pile and began to eat.
After a few minutes Ginny came out from behind the shower curtain, wrapped in nothing but a fluffy white towel. Harry immediately forgot all about his breakfast and watched her hungrily. Ginny thanked Hermione and walked back down the corridor towards her bunk, smiling at Harry. She stopped to look into Ron's bunk; satisfied her brother was still asleep, she came over to Harry and slipped easily into his lap, linking her arms around his neck.
"Morning", she murmured.
"Hey you", Harry said softly.
Ginny leant in to kiss him, and Harry passed a blissful minute with nothing but the sensation of soft lips against his and the damp tickle of hair that smelt lovely. Then Ginny broke off, giggling slightly as she turned to look at Hermione, who was watching the two of them with amused surprise. Harry gave her a sly smile and went back to his breakfast. Ginny hopped into her own bunk above his.
Once he'd finished eating, and taken a moment to wonder if Hermione would object if he joined Ginny in her bunk, Harry went over to have a look at the shower. He got roped into casting charms so Hermione and Luna could have showers, and then had to persuade Neville to take over from him so he could have his own shower.
In the end everyone had showers, and lined up behind the black door. Ron stepped up to it and opened the door slowly; behind him, Hermione was being put under whispered orders from Ginny not to tell him anything about her and Harry.
It was pitch black behind the door, and Ron shivered as he stepped through; the air was damp and chilly. He cast a Lumos, and found himself at the end of a grey passage, similar to the one that had led to the corridor. Behind them, the black door was set into a wall of sheer rock, and the way forward was blocked by a pile of stones which had been carefully stacked to form a wall. Harry and the others came through after Ron. The only way out seemed to be through the wall.
The six of them spent a few minutes summoning stones from the wall and leaving them in small piles by their feet. Part of the wall collapsed near Hermione. A jet of water came through, and she had to step quickly to avoid it. Everyone stopped to see if they'd made any progress. An ominous rumbling sound came from behind the wall and a second jet burst through, higher up than the first.
"I think it's a dam", Ron said, sounding worried. A few stones rolled down from the top of the wall.
Then a third jet appeared, and then a fourth, and there was a low rumbling noise as the wall collapsed and a torrent of water rushed in, flooding them instantly. Harry saw Neville's wand spin past him as he was engulfed by the wall of water, driving all the air from his lungs and extinguishing his Lumos. He spun through icy, dizzying darkness, the sound of rushing water filling his ears as he kept a white-knuckled grip on his wand. His knee slammed hard into something solid, and Harry winced as rocks and stones pelted him. Half a minute passed as he was swept around by currents. Desperate for air, he tried to cast a bubble-head charm, but the words came out in a watery gurgle. Panic rose in his chest and he forcing himself to concentrate on casting the spell silently, struggling to ignore the pressure building in his head and the ringing in his ears.
A bubbled of air formed around his head, flickered and disappeared. Icy saltwater filled his mouth. Cold terror threatened to overwhelm him, and he lost another few seconds panicking as he struggled to compose himself and recast the spell. The bubble popped back into existence. Harry took a deep breath and closed his eyes, visualising light spilling out of his wand, and after concentrating on the image for a few seconds, he opened his eyes. A ball of white light was glowing at the end of his wand.
It did little to shift the darkness, but he could see two forms above him. Ron and Ginny were scrabbling frantically for air at the top of the cave. They noticed the light and turned towards Harry. He swam over to them, casting two bubble-head charms in succession. Both found their targets and were received with grateful breaths. Harry sent the ball of light out into the centre of the cave, searching desperately for the others and dreading what he might find. The cave was completely submerged by now.
Hermione had been swept right down the passage. She'd been able to cast her own bubble-head charm and was swimming back towards the others. Luna was sitting on the floor, now covered in a layer of stones and debris beneath them. With a flick of her wand, she was making large bubbles that she could breathe through, one at a time.
Then Harry spotted Neville, and his blood ran cold. Neville was fumbling blindly for his wand on the floor, becoming more and more sluggish; it was clear that he was very nearly out of air. Before Harry and Luna, who were closest, could get to him he stopped moving and lay still. Harry froze and let out a cry that only he could hear.
Luna reached Neville and sent bubbles into his mouth, her hands trembling with each spell. Nothing happened. Neville floated in the water, still as a corpse. Luna kept clutching at Neville's shoulders and shaking him, and Harry had to swim over to Luna and cast a bubble-head charm on her, because in her distress she wasn't remembering to feed herself any bubbles.
Half a minute passed. Dread filled Harry's stomach. Ginny swam over to Luna and tried to pull her away from Neville's body, but the sobbing Ravenclaw witch wouldn't budge. Then Neville shuddered, once, and coughed violently. Luna fed him more bubbles, a look of barely concealed hope in her eyes. The hiccups lessened and Neville relaxed, swallowing the bubbles; his eyes shot open and he looked around in a panic until he spotted Luna and remembered where he was. He smiled at her, and she gave him a clumsy underwater embrace. Then Luna pulled away, unable to stop herself sobbing, and swam away from the group in an effort to hide her tears. Neville watched her go, looking decidedly uncomfortable.
The others crowded round Neville, wanting to make sure he was alright. Ron retrieved Neville's wand and handed it to him. Neville looked around at the others and gave them a thumbs up – no one could hear each other underwater – and motioned down the passage, which had been made accessible by the rock fall.
Harry nodded, and swam back down the cave to find Luna. She was hovering in the dark by the black door and gave him a teary smile as he tried to explain what they were going to do. He couldn't get much across with hand signals, and had to resort to pointing at the wall until Luna nodded. The two of them swam back to the others, and the group set off up the passage. Most of the wall had collapsed which enabled them to swim over it easily. Swimming for another minute brought them to the mouth of the cave.
Harry emerged out into the open sea. The cave they'd been in was no more than a fissure near the top of a submerged cliff. Light filtered down from the surface. There was only inky darkness below them; the seafloor must have been some way off, and Harry felt a twinge of unease as he peered into the vast, watery emptiness around him. He struck out for the surface and the others followed him. Everyone cancelled their bubble-head charms as they broke through the waves, drawing in lungfuls of fresh, salty air.
Above them, purple-black storm clouds rumbled and drifted below the stone ceiling of a cave. There was only water in every direction and Harry was impressed by the sheer size of the cave; for it was certainly much bigger than any cave in our world, if it could hold a small sea inside it. Echoes of thunder rolled in from beyond the horizon.
"What are we going to do?" Ron asked, treading water. The others shrugged in response. An idea came to Harry in a flash of inspiration.
"Glacius!" he said, pointing his wand down into water beside him.
A platform of ice materialised as the spell hit the water. There must have been some magic in the sea, because as the spell streaked away, a great white arc spread out beneath it. It rose above the waves into the distance, forming a passage of ice thick enough to walk on. Harry clambered onto the platform and helped the others out of the water. Once everyone had cast enough drying and warming charms to make themselves comfortable, they set off along the path of ice.
After a time they came to a small island. It was a rocky outcrop, grey and crusted with lichen, which barely rose above the waves, and being grey and full of puddles made it almost invisible against the sea. If the path hadn't led straight to the island, Harry was sure they never would have found it. In the middle of the island was a wooden pulpit. Long ago, it wouldn't have been of place in a fine church, but it had been battered by the wind and warped by the sea, and now looked about as impressive as the island it stood upon.
They walked over to the pulpit, intrigued. The staircase was only wide enough for one. Harry climbed up to the top, where a thick, leather-bound book had been placed. He brushed the dust and salt from the cover to reveal symbols written in peeling gold print. Some of the symbols were familiar from the black door. Harry opened the book.
Now, the best way to describe Harry's experience is to imagine you have been taught a language when you were a very small child. As you grow up, for whatever reason, you stop learning and speaking in this language, and after several years you forget you could ever speak it. Then, many years after this you hear someone speaking the same language and to your own surprise, you can understand it. You can't say for sure what any of the individual words mean, or how you can understand the language.
And so it was for Harry. After staring blankly at the first page for a few seconds, he began to understand what was written on it. There were three charms; the first was to stop wood rotting, the second turned seawater into freshwater, and the last one could let you store sunlight in a bottle. Beside each charm was an incantation written in a neatly flowing script. There was also an animated drawing to help the reader understand the effects of each spell. He turned the page and grinned at a sketch of himself summoning fish out of a lake.
Harry flicked through the spellbook, stopping now and then to admire a particularly detailed drawing, or an interesting spell he'd never heard of before. The first chapters were filled with simple charms; you only had to say a sentence or two to know the age of certain trees, or when it would next rain. Most of the spells were harmless, and some looked quite fun. There was one you could cast to make your hands glow in the dark, and another that made you light as a feather; next to this one was a sketch of a wizard dancing on a cloud. Harry found himself wishing he could read the book aloud.
The book must have been centuries old, he thought, as he read a rather medieval chapter, which taught him how to build a magical catapult and fire it, among other things. There was also a particularly useful spell you could cast on your sword to ensure the blade never dulled and the metal never rusted. The chapter ended with a nasty spell that sent a stream of boiling tar at your enemy. Harry thought the sketched version of himself looked a bit too happy dousing people in tar.
As he read on, the spells became more complex. Many of them required precise spellcasting and long incantations. Some of the spells were really impressive; there was one for perfect balance on horseback, and another to be cast on a bowstring that ensured your arrows always flew true. You could increase the harvest of crops by casting special charms on soils. And two whole pages were filled with a long list of ingredients to make a potion that made it so you no longer needed sleep.
In the middle of the book, there were several beautifully coloured pictures of magical creatures. Many of them Harry had never seen before, and there were others he thought only existed in myth. He read on, fascinated; there were whole pages filled with advice on dealing with satyrs and fauns, what to do if you met a manticore and how to defeat a sea-serpent, which Harry learned were impervious to all things except fire. He glanced up and studied the sea nervously.
If you were building a house in a magical forest, there were offerings for dryads and other forest nymphs you could leave. There was a whole chapter on which trees you were allowed to chop down and which ones were sacred to the forest spirits and had to be treated with respect.
Several pages were covered in detailed construction diagrams, which informed the reader how to build powerful magical objects; there was a pool that allowed you to see events happenings in far-off lands; armour that protected the wearer from almost every hex and jinx; a silver flute that awoke river spirits when you played it. There was an elaborate time-turner that didn't rewind time, but instead enabled the wearer to experience time at half-speed, and last of all was a pair of magnificent wardrobes built from white oak. If you stepped into one, you would always emerge from the other, no matter how far apart they were.
But not everything in the book was pleasant. Harry skipped a whole chapter on how you could use cooking and skinning charms meant for animals on people. The chapter that followed was devoted to the lost art of fashioning objects out of earth and water; it was a very old form of elemental magic he wasn't familiar with.
Finally Harry came to the last chapter of the book, which promised wonderful and terrible things. There were spells to grow trees that bore everlasting fruit, and others that let you talk to birds and animals. But most of the chapter was powerful dark magic. If he was so inclined, Harry could make boiling water pour from clouds and bring comets falling out of the sky. He read spells to bring down castles, to lead armies astray, and even a long poem that, if recited, would stop the Sun and Moon in their orbits for one hour. There were rituals that made it so you could commune with creatures that lived in the deep, forgotten places of the world.
And so Harry came to the last page in the book. On it was a spell that promised to teach him how to vanquish any enemies he had. In the very centre of the page, between the columns of text, was a sketch of him and Voldemort duelling. Harry went very still and stared at the picture.
A couple of symbols at the top of the page glowed blue. Then a voice sounded in Harry's head. He looked around him, expecting to see someone talking nearby, but the island was silent. The others were watching him quietly from the bottom of the pulpit. The voice spoke again, and Harry spun around, unable to find the source of the voice. For a third time he heard it, repeating the same phrase, and he realised it was an inner echo that only he could hear.
The voice kept coaxing him to speak. Harry paused, and then repeated the strange syllables. The blue light at the top of the page grew brighter. The voice said a different phrase and Harry copied it. The blue light raced halfway along the top line and Harry realised with a thrill of excitement that he was saying the incantation for the spell. He carried on, growing confident as he sped through the lines. Harry closed his eyes, only focusing on sound of the voice and his own. In no time at all he came to the end of the spell. He opened his eyes. He peered around the cave from his vantage point on the pulpit. Nothing happened; he didn't feel more powerful than he had a couple of minutes ago, or know how he would defeat Voldemort. He looked down at the book. The blue light winked at him, only halfway down the page. The picture had changed. Harry gasped.
The sketch of him and Voldemort had vanished. Now Lily and James Potter were smiling and waving up at him from their place in the middle of the page. Harry's heart leapt at the sight. The voice began in his head again and he repeated every syllable eagerly.
Now if Harry had been thinking clearly, he would have known that it was a very bad idea to carry on with a spell that he didn't understand. But being presented with a chance to be united with his parents was something he couldn't pass up, and kept reading. He'd convinced himself the spell was only half-finished, and when he completed it he'd have his parents back and be able to defeat Voldemort.
A dark presence crept out of the book as he read on. Something malevolent was being released from the book, unnoticed by Harry; it grew with each sentence he finished and hung in between every syllable he uttered, heavy with the weight of ritual magic. Even the tone of the voice that whispered to Harry changed. If it had been soothing at the start of the spell, it now sounded malicious. And Harry's own voice changed; it became deep and sonorous, like he was speaking from the bottom of a well. A shadowy substance bled into the air and swelled with every syllable he repeated. Black tendrils, growing longer and thicker, snaked around Harry, cloaking him in a freezing mist. Evil stood beside him on the pulpit. And still he read on, giving no notice to anything apart from the book.
The picture changed again; he was walking along a grassy verge, and with a flick of his wand, he revived his parents, and they were walking next to him with ghastly smiles. Then Harry faltered slightly, struck by how grotesque and unnatural his parents looked. And a new voice rang through his head, sounding like he stood on the pulpit beside him even though Harry knew he was another world away.
No spell can awaken the dead, Harry.
Dumbledore's echo. Harry faltered for a moment, losing his place in the spell, and the voice stopped to urge him on, growing stronger and dividing itself so a chorus rang through his head. An uneasy feeling filled Harry. But seeing himself walking hand in hand with his parents had brought out a desperate yearning in him. He pressed on with the spell, clinging to the hope that those laws of magic only applied in his own world, and here, in these underground caves of forests and seas and creatures that shrieked in the dark, he could be reunited with his parents at last. And yet, a nagging voice in the back of his head reminded him, when had Dumbledore ever been wrong about something that concerned magic? He looked at his parents again, and for the first time he noticed that their eyes didn't seem to focus on anything as they walked beside him with their fixed and ghastly smiles. Even their walk was disconcerting, Harry thought, as he saw how rigid and measured every movement they made was, looking just like puppets brought into animation.
"Oh – Harry –"
Hermione had come up onto the pulpit. She gave him a sympathetic look. For a moment he hated her. She didn't know anything. She didn't know what it was like to want something this badly; she didn't know what it was like to lose someone you loved more than yourself.
Harry pressed on with the spell, following the trail of blue that hurried across the page. The voices quickened, and he knew he was nearing the end of the spell. He glared at Hermione, chanting in unison with the voices that filled his head; he didn't even have to look at the book now. Hermione shrank away from him, frightened, and hurried back down the staircase, leaving him alone on the pulpit. Harry turned back to the book, and the voices murmured their approval, telling him how close he was to finishing the spell. His heart leapt at the thought of being held in the warm, loving embraces of his parents. The trail of blue hurried on; only a few lines left and he'd be done.
A hand closed around his own, smaller and warmer than his. Ginny was standing next to him, studying the book with a frown.
"It tells you about all these things – about love, and about friendship. It tells you how happy you can be, if only you'll trust it. But it's all lies."
There was a tremor of fear in her voice as she looked at Harry. He hesitated, and the voices urged him on, telling him how close he was to seeing his parents, how close he was to having a family that loved him, cared for him, and would do anything for him. And now Sirius was gone, he had no one. He could have a family again. He could leave the Dursleys. A savage determination spurred Harry on, and he continued. The trail of blue was almost at the bottom of the page now.
"Please Harry. I know what it's like."
He looked at Ginny for the first time. He looked into those brown eyes, wide with concern, and he knew what she was thinking. He remembered finding her cold, limp body in the Chamber next to Tom. He looked back at the book, where James and Lily waved at him from the page in their false bodies.
A hot, sickly feeling of horror rose up within Harry and he paused, fighting against the compulsion to finish the spell and the hopeful, stubborn part of him that still believed he could see him parents. Syllables escaped his lips and the blue light inched ever closer; he lunged at the book and slammed it shut. The voices disappeared. The freezing, black mist vanished. Ginny stepped towards him but he slipped past her. He knew she was just trying to console him, but he didn't want to hear it; he didn't want to be made to feel better, or to be told it was alright.
Hermione, Ron, Neville and Luna stood at the bottom of the pulpit. He saw, with some dismay, that he'd upset Hermione; she was wiping her eyes and refused to look at him.
"You alright Harry?" Ron asked hesitantly. "We could hear you talking to someone…"
He gave Harry a questioning look. Harry came down the pulpit steps with his head bowed, struggling to compose himself. Ron frowned.
"You alright?" he asked again.
"It's nothing." Harry said, shrugging Ron off and looking out to the furthest tip of the island, where a familiar black door had appeared. Ron muttered something about just asking. Harry brushed past him and walked over to the door, stopping for a moment to gaze out across the flat, featureless sea. The last, awful line of the ritual lingered in his head, and for a brief moment he was tempted to utter it. He knew nothing good would come of it, but he felt so helpless that he could hardly bring himself to care.
A pair of footsteps had followed him as he stood looking out over the sea. He turned around. Ginny was standing behind him, looking nervous. She's scared of me, too, Harry thought, feeling desperately ashamed as Ginny stared at him, pale and wide-eyed with worry. He couldn't bear to see her looking at him like that.
He turned away and walked over to open the door. As expected, it led to the corridor. He walked through and fell into his bunk, lying facing the wall. Ginny came through and sat by his feet. She was waiting for him to talk, but try as he might, Harry couldn't think of anything to say, and after a couple of minutes she got up and left him. Someone left a plate of sandwiches next to his pillow. He wasn't hungry but he ate them anyway, knowing Hermione would pester him to eat something if he didn't.
The rest of the afternoon passed in miserable contemplation. Harry didn't eat any supper. A few hours later someone dimmed the lights and he could hear others going to bed. He rolled over. Luna was watching him from her bunk on the opposite wall. Harry looked back at her listlessly. She kept watching him patiently, and as those silver eyes bore into his, a fresh wave of sorrow rose within in him, and Harry knew for certain he'd lost his parents again, and in all likelihood, Sirius was gone too.
He muffled a sob into his hand. Luna silently hurried over to sit beside him. Harry didn't move away, or say anything; usually he'd be ashamed of crying in front of someone else, but Luna had an understanding quality about her. He gave her a cracked smile and she edged towards him, reluctant to do or say anything in case he snapped at her.
A hand was tentatively placed on Harry's shoulder. Luna gave him a gentle hug, and after a few seconds he gave in and hugged her back, grateful to have someone close. She understood, and he knew she understood. She'd been through the same thing. She knew about losing parents and the childhoods lost along with them. He felt slightly guilty that he was seeking comfort from another girl while Ginny slept above him. But Luna didn't seem to mind.
"Thank you", he whispered.
"Sadness can be difficult to bear alone, Harry", Luna whispered back, tears shining in her eyes.