Chapter 10
Poppy stared at the painting for several minutes, her lids unblinking. Eventually, Dobby left her side and crawled about the floors of the secret library room. From the corner of his round eyes he found an Atlas book lying on the messy ground. The cover was blank, brown and very old. It had worn edges that bent inward and a small tear on the side.
Slowly, Dobby picked it up and turned over the cover. The book only contained a few pages, perhaps twenty at the most, each with funny drawings. It only took Dobby a second or two to realize it was the very same island he was trapped on.
When Dobby touched the triangular island, the image lifted off the page and was now in 3-D. Wherever Dobby tilted his head, the image followed him. He twirled about, almost dropping the book, and still the image followed him.
Then, he placed the book on the ground and lied down next to it. He propped his head onto his hands, his elbows bent to the floor, and studied the transparent image.
He pointed his pinky finger at the northern and then moved it downward until it fell over a spot on the map, which chilled his skin. Chinese characteristics were written over it, but Dobby didn't understand them.
"Dobby must go!" Poppy suddenly yelled.
Dobby dropped the book, the image disappeared, and he smacked his chin on the floor. Quickly, he was pulled to his feet and brushed off the dust. Poppy started to push him toward the brick wall, but Dobby dug his heels into the ground.
"But Poppy wants to be free, does she not?"
"Yes, but if Dobby does not leave, Dobby will diieee," she said in a very serious tone. She gritted her teeth on the last word die.
"Please, stop! Explain to Dobby!" He pleaded, his heels turning red.
"No time! Master will find us!"
And then, Dobby did something he didn't mean to do. He stopped resisting and closed his eyes and thought about Harry Potter. Even though Harry was never his master, he held him just as high or even higher than one.
As Dobby thought even more about finding Harry, he felt a cool sensation come over his body. Everything became numb and dulling. His body was very light, and the smell of crisp, clean air filled his nose and then his lungs.
When Dobby opened his eyes, he was no longer in the secret library room. Instead, he hovered in the air outside, his body touching nothing but air. Quickly, Dobby panicked and tried to find anything around him to grab on to, but there was nothing at all.
As his body began to fall, he realized he must have transported himself outside by just thinking about Harry. It had been so long since he used his powers so frequently… He must have lost control for a second and transported himself without even realizing it.
Dobby snapped his fingers, and gently his feet touched the sands below. If his transporting techniques were growing, it was to his advantage. All he had to do was think about the person he wanted to see, and he would materialize right there. He had heard of some house elves with that ability, but of course, they only used it to go to their master when they were called…
'Harry Potter,' Dobby thought to himself. For some reason, he considered Harry like a master in his mind, even though the Malfoys were his previous owners. Dobby tried to block that out as he thought about what Harry looked like, smelt like and even sounded like.
It happened again. A cool rushing sensation came over him, and he knew he was about to lift off the ground. Everything became hazy, and his stomach felt as if it had been punched. Just as Dobby thought about throwing up, his body felt calm again. Nothing spun around him, and his toes suddenly felt sand squishing in between them.
He was outside of the Eastern Towers. A few dead guards still lay littered on the ground, but the majority of them had disappeared. That was why Poppy wanted Dobby to leave. They had just brought the Yeti in, and she must have known that the keeper would want to see it.
Dobby sighed and lifted his hand against the elf handprint like he had done before. If he was correct, Harry Potter was someone in that tower. However, he had no idea which room.
"What is it Harry?" Hermione asked as she walked away from Ron still on the floor.
"I saw a black dot coming from over there," he said and pointed. "It darted across the map and now… there it is. It's inside."
Hermione squinted her eyes. "Are you sure it's not a piece of dirt?"
She licked her fingers and tried to wipe away the ink; but it didn't work. Then, the dot began to move, causing Hermione to jolt back into Harry's arms. Ron gave him a dirty look.
"I told you I saw it moving," he said. "I wonder what it is."
"Let's hope it's not—" Hermione stopped and looked over at Ron who gave her that 'her she goes again' look.
Suddenly, she realized exactly what Ron was trying to tell her earlier. It wasn't about who was right or wrong, it was about how she was acting toward them. Her terrible mood wasn't helping at all. Even if she was being smart and precautious, doubting everything did make it seem as if they would never leave.
"Let's hope it's help," she continued.
Ron smiled at her. "That's the spirit!"
"Well, help or not, it's moving again," said Harry.
They watched as the black dot moved throughout the corridors very slowly. It seemed to be stopping every few feet, and then walking once again. After about twenty minutes, the dot appeared on the same floor as Harry, Ron and Hermione.
"It's here!" yelled Hermione.
Dobby felt like giving up. He had poked his head into over three hundred cells with no luck at all. There were only a few floors left, so he continued anyway. When he came across the fortieth cell of floor, he read the numbers "369" to himself.
"Did you hear that?" asked Ron. "That sounded like Dobby."
"Dobby!" yelled Harry.
Outside of the cell, Dobby jumped back, hearing his own name called. "Harry Potter?"
"Yes, Dobby! We're in here!"
Dobby snapped his fingers and quickly appeared in front of three horrible looking young people. They wore ratty clothes, had dirt all over their faces and smelled like putrid body odor.
The group immediately hugged Dobby tightly, surrounding him completely. After he pleaded that he was suffocating, the group let go, and Dobby stepped forward.
"Can you get us out of here?" asked Harry.
"Of course," he said. "That's why Dobby came, to rescue master."
"Master?" Harry said, followed by Hermione echoing the same thing.
"Nevermind," said Dobby. "We must goes before guards return."
"You mean there aren't any guards?" Hermione asked.
Dobby shook his head. "Terrible, terrible thing. It killed them! But some alive, and some will come unless we goes!"
The group didn't understand. They hadn't seen the Yeti and had no idea what Dobby was talking about. It didn't matter though, because he was there, and they were that much closer to escaping.
"Come now," said Dobby.
He grabbed onto the wrists of all three of them and closed his eyes. Just as he had done when the ship was sinking, he transported the whole group only a small distance. They reappeared on the first floor on the tower, still inside.
"It didn't work?" asked Ron still seeing dark stone walls.
"No, it did! Look!" Hermione pointed at an opening not too far ahead.
It was the same door that Dobby and the elves used to get inside. That meant that house elves were near by or had just possibly entered to feed the prisoners.
"We must hurry!" Dobby yelled.
He motioned the group to follow him as he ran through the open door. They cleared the building without any other house elves in sight, nor any guards. It was very cold, and something definitely wasn't right.
"Are you sure they aren't any guards?" asked Hermione only a few inches from Dobby.
"Shh," he whispered.
The crept along the eastern walls trying not to make any sounds. They eventually came to the gap that Dobby had to pass earlier. Still, no guards were there but something was different. The gap no longer shimmered as it had before.
"Dobby, wait up," said Harry. He ran ahead of Ron and Hermione and stood next to Dobby. "Where do you plan on taking us?
"Back to Poppy's secret room," he said. "Dobby promised to free them."
"Free who?" asked Hermione. "And who is Poppy?"
"Dobby will explain once we get there," he said.
They began to walk across the dirt path in front of the gap. Dobby went first with Harry by his side. As they inched across, Dobby finally noticed that the barrier was no longer there.
Suddenly, a dart hit Dobby's neck, and instantly, he hit the ground. Seeing this, Hermione and Ron started to run in the other direction and hoped to hide in between two of the cell towers. Harry turned as well, but just as he was about to make a run, something touched his shoulder.
"You think you can run that easily," said a woman's voice.
It was a robed guard with curly read hair. She looked very much like a Weasley actually, but it couldn't be. Perhaps it was a very distant relative or someone that she resembled the Weasleys. She even had the freckles.
As Harry studied her face, she quickly pointed her staff at Dobby, which made him disappear completely. Then, she pointed it at Harry, and chains appeared around his arms and legs.
Suddenly, his scar began to throb in pain. "Ow," he moaned.
"Are they too tight? Good," she said nastily. "I hope you enjoy your stay."
Harry's body began to levitate. It floated through the gap and past the dangling nooses. Hundreds of wizards and witches hung with rope tied around their necks. Some of them were obviously dead, but at the same time, their chests were moving up and down. It was some sort of perpetual death.
Before Harry could get a good look at any of them, a noose fell over his head and then tightened around his neck. His body slumped downward, and it was getting very hard to breath. If he was supposed to die, it didn't work.
As he hung there for several minutes, he felt his scar again throbbing. It wasn't as bad as it was earlier, but it was still fairly painful. The stinging nerved the back of his eyes, and it was as if a fire was burning behind them.
Then, he saw the impossible. A man appeared, floating before him with a dark, stubbly beard and thick hair. His face was thin and pale and very dreary looking. He wore shabby clothes, very dirty and worn, and appeared to be reaching out his hands toward Harry.
"Sirius," Harry whispered. "Are you… are you a ghost?"
But Sirius didn't talk. Instead, he just floated there as Harry's scar throbbed. The more it hurt, the clearer Sirius's image was. It was horrible. So many times had Harry wished to see Sirius again, but not like that, not like that at all.
Suddenly, Sirius was gone, and Harry was no longer hanging at the docks. At least, that's what he thought. His body now stood in a cell, but it was not the cell he was in before.
A young man lay on the ground with a woman next to him. They were kissing each other on the lips. She wore a dark robe with a golden tie around her waist. And he wore drab, holy clothing that hadn't been washed in ages.
"Hello?" Harry asked.
But the two couldn't see or hear him. He actually wasn't even there. It was his scar again and his visions or dreams or whatever you'd like to call them. Again, he was in the past, but he didn't know when. This wasn't like this other dreams, because in this one, he was physically in the room. It felt so real.
"Arianna, if you're father catches us," the man began to speak.
"What is he going to do? He would never harm me," she said. "Oh, Tom, I know you hate it here. Especially because you think you're innocent."
"Because I am innocent! Last October, I was with my family on a ship exploring the Pacific ocean. We found some coral reeves and islands and settled down for a few days. Then, we were about to leave—"
"I know, you've told me this story a million times. Just as you were about to leave, there was a huge fire. Your parents were killed, and you were brought here."
"I didn't do anything! I'm not even one of you," he said.
"But you are a wizard, Tom," she said sweetly. "You just don't know it yet… We don't make mistakes here. You did something."
"You think I killed them? You always have… I'm not getting into that, again! You better go," he said.
Then, he gently kissed her lips, and she left the room. As Harry looked at the man's face, something struck him. He was so familiar yet not… It hit him. The name Tom…
He looked so much like the Tom Riddle he saw from the diary several years ago and when he saved Ginny from the serpent. But it couldn't have been Tom Riddle. At least, it wasn't the one Harry was thinking about.
Little did Harry know that this Tom Riddle was not Lord Voldemort but his father, who happened to have the same name. He was born in the late 1300s and was sentenced to the Devil's Triangle after accidentally killing his parents with a fire he started. He had no idea he was a wizard, and just like Harry accidentally let a serpent loose on Dudley, this Tom accidentally started a fire on his parents.
Tom was locked away for several hundreds of years. In the late 1800s, this Tom Riddle finally escaped, with the help of a house elf named Poppy and his lover, Arianna, after failing to escape in the 1400s when he murdered Mr. Lee. This Tom Riddle found a woman in the early 1900s and bore a son… This Tom Riddle found out his wife was a witch and left her… He already loved one witch; he could never love another.