Card the Moon
Chapter 27 – Oh, Christmas trees
…
"Harry, mate, you okay?"
What a stupid question, Harry thought, which was similar to what he'd been thinking most of the morning. His friends were tiptoeing around something, afraid to tell him, what? He had a pretty good idea. It was being quite uncharitable to his friends to think it, but he was in quite an uncharitable mood.
He might have been able to work some of it off, if his friends hadn't decided to follow him around everywhere. So much for getting the most out of his holiday.
"Harry?"
Now Hermione was doing it, "What?"
"It's just, Ron and I've been talking."
"How magnanimous of Ron," who was still convinced all that ailed his ailing rat was to be blamed on Luna, which by extension, meant Hermione.
"Mate, we're worried about you."
They had a really annoying way of showing it.
"Harry, you have to promise us you won't do anything foolish."
"No," half the things he did on a daily basis could be considered foolish depending on who you asked, and besides, he didn't have to promise anything he didn't want to.
"Come on mate, be reasonable."
"It's no good you going after Sirius Black. You're going to get yourself killed. You think that's what your parents would have wanted?"
"I wouldn't know. I never got a chance to ask them."
'Because of him' hung in the air not needing to be said. It was a low blow, but no lower than playing the 'what would your parents say' card. How would he know what his parents would say, he'd never gotten the chance to know them. Maybe they would have been behind the idea. How would he know?
"Come on mate it's the holidays. Why don't we go see Hagrid? We haven't done that in a while."
"Yes!" said Hermione, jumping on the idea. "Let's go see Hagrid."
"Yes, let's go see Hagrid," said Harry, surprising his friends. "We can ask him why he never mentioned my father was friends with a mass murdering traitor."
His friends quickly attempted to backpedal, but Harry was having none of it. If they wouldn't go, he'd go himself, and so, the three of them headed out the portrait hole, ignoring Sir Cadogan's challenge as they passed.
"I'm sure he wasn't trying to keep it from you. It probably just slipped his mind."
"Seems to be going around." How many others knew? Who else was intentionally keeping him in the dark?
McGonagall? Almost certainly. Flitwick? Dumbledore, he hadn't really seen, and also might be a youma; that as yet hadn't been verified. It was maddening, knowing how little he knew and knowing people were trying to keep him from knowing.
"Hermione! I'm sure Hagrid will be able to explain himself; you can stop making up excuses for him," Harry said sharply, cutting off her babbling defense.
"You don't need to snap."
He didn't, but it wasn't going to stop him. His mood did not allow for a two-sided argument, so he saw no reason trying to have one.
Another sharp remark sat honing the edge of his tongue, but an offhand comment from Ron sent it tumbling off, "Are those trees?"
The non sequitur was sufficiently perplexing both his friends looked at him oddly.
"What are you on about?" said Harry.
"Down there," said Ron, staring over the edge and down the great spiral of free-thinking staircases.
His friends followed his gaze, "They do look a bit," said Hermione.
"What in the world?"
Down on the ground floor, a whole stand of trees was growing. One seemed to be growing especially fast, in their direction.
"How can it be doing that?" said Hermione frantically.
"Magic," offered Ron.
"Oh really!"
Ron shrugged, causing Harry to crack his first smile all day. It made as much sense as anything else. It was why the staircase they were on chose that moment to move, carrying Hermione and Ron upward and to the left.
"Harry!" was perfectly fine, only now one floor removed from his friends.
"Mate, wait for us. We'll find a way over to you."
"No," said Harry. "Head for the ground floor. I'll meet you down there."
He had a pretty good idea what was causing the sudden forestation of the castle, and he didn't need his friends who were not in the know getting in his way.
"FLY!"
On white wings he glided down to ground level, passing the tree that continued to grow up between the stairs. At the rate it was going it would be pushing through the roof of the tower within a couple hours.
"Gotta find where this is coming from." He didn't fancy sleeping under an open sky in the middle of winter.
The ground floor was a mess, covered in moving roots spreading further from their source. This at least worked in his favor. All he had to do was go in the opposite direction the roots were going. That was where the advantage ended, because the doorway was completely blocked off by trees.
His wings vanished as he stood thinking. None of his cards would be any good here. Even TIME could only hope to slow things down; WINDY, LOOP, what could they do.
"Guess we're going native," he remarked, saddened only by the fact the cat wasn't around to hear it.
His first spell was a cutter, much improved from the first time he'd cast it, "Well that's discouraging." Much improved was not enough to get more than halfway through one trunk, which then presented another problem.
The damage was quick to begin repairing. He could throw cutters for days and not get anywhere. This limited his options. The blaster might work, might. He had only one other good option, but he was hesitant to use fire. With so much wood, he might well cut himself off and burn to death.
"Have to risk it," the problem wasn't going to solve itself and he couldn't count on anyone else to do it. Luna had gone home for the holidays.
There hadn't been a proper name for the spell in the book, least not one he could read. It was an old text; the sort Hermione would have loved. He'd picked it up because he tripped over it. The spell was modular, giving a slightly different effect depending on the will and focus of the caster. If he wasn't careful one spell could completely drain him.
He focused his into a bore of white fire that drilled through the wooden barrier, rendering the obstacle swiftly to ash. He broke off the spell and leapt through the opening, turning back to put out any lingering flames only to find they were putting themselves out as the opening was sealed shut behind him.
"That can't be good," if it could seal up a hole that big that fast, he needed to get moving.
The corridor was surprisingly empty, all the foliage reaching around the walls and across the ceiling, hiding the stone but still remaining a corridor. It felt like he had been raised several feet, judging by the position of the windows which could just barely be made out in the cracks and provided some illumination.
It was enough to see and carefully he made his way further in. There was no obvious growing here, so he was forced to guess that he was going the right way. Given the number of turns and forks it was possible, even likely he'd get lost seeking his objective, since he didn't know where it was.
Serendipity smiled on him, because she knew it would annoy Fate, and presented him with a bit of assistance.
"Mrow. Mrow."
Harry stopped, "I know that mrow," he said, "but where is it coming from?"
He followed the persistent calling till he found a long line of trees lining a once open hallway.
"Well, well, what have we here? Kitty stuck up a tree?"
The kitty looked down at him in surprise, "Harry? Is that you? How'd you get in here?"
"Burned my way in."
"Are you mad? With all this wood?"
"Thought about that," he said. "I barely got through the hole before it started growing back."
"Oh dear, that's not good."
No, it wasn't, "I've got to find the source. You know what this is, what it has to be that's doing this?"
The cat nodded, "It's certainly no youma. If it were you could be certain it would have come to investigate you burning it."
"Hadn't thought of that," though it was certainly true. "Do you need some help getting out of there?"
"Hmm? Oh yes, yes. Just stand right there, and…" the cat leapt from her perch to his waiting shoulder. "Ah, much better. Going to be cleaning all that sap off my paws for hours."
"Well now that your down, any idea where I should go?"
"The great hall," she said without pause.
"You're sure?"
"That's where I saw it coming from, before I got stuck up there and deposited here."
A thought struck him, "You don't think, the Christmas tree?"
"That would make sense."
"Well let's go."
"Just a second," she interrupted. "Before we go, can you do me a favor and burn out that tree. All the way down if possible. There's something under there I want to get at."
"Uh, yeah, sure."
Summoning the fire again as a white-hot pillar, the tree was turned to ash down to its roots which yelped and scrambled beneath their feet.
"What the hell! What was that?"
"A youma," said the cat.
"There was a youma under there?"
She nodded, "I was tracking it when this all started."
"Should we—go after it?" it didn't seem wise leaving it to run loose, but…
"No, I'll go after it. You go handle this. You're the only one who can. I'll find Hermione and have her deal with him."
"She and Ron were trying to find their way to the ground floor when I saw them last. They should have made it by now."
With a nod the cat was off, and Harry headed for the great hall as fast as he could. Not as fast as he would have liked but over the uneven footing of the roots it was the best he could do. The corridor was too tight to use FLY, his wings would easily brush either wall.
Still, he made headway, till he came to near the entrance to the great hall where the ceiling really opened up, "Oh bugger," and the trees returned, in height.
It was an indoor conifer woodland, Spruce if wasn't wrong, though he might have been, he wasn't an arborist. They filled the space from wall to wall and stretched all the way to the ceiling. So many close together, their branches interwove creating an impenetrable barrier.
Impenetrable, till you cut them off.
The branches grew back quickly, but not fast enough to stop Harry getting through. He stuck to his cutter on this one, trimming branches and weaving through the open spaces till he heard a sound coming from the other side. It sounded like, singing?
"I know that voice. HAGRID!"
The singing stopped, "Arry? That you?"
It was, "Yeah! What're you doing?"
"Trying to cut my way in. You know what's going on Harry?"
Probably, "I'm currently blaming Fred and George, just on principle."
A big chuckle rolled through the forest, "Whether it them or not they'll probably get the blame anyway."
And relish the attention, "It's already spread all the way to the tower."
"Musta gotten away from um. Where you headed?"
"The great hall. You haven't seen anyone else in all this have you?"
"Not yet," he said. "But I know Dumbledore's down in the village vistin is brother. Can't say where anyone else might be."
Probably barricaded in their offices, thought Harry. "I'm gonna cut my way into the hall and see what I can find. If we can stop it growing, we might be able to do something about all this."
"Be careful Arry. No telling what ya might find in there."
That wasn't true. Harry had a pretty good idea what he'd find, though he was a bit surprised. He wasn't expecting to find the WOOD card, an elfin looking woman, sitting midway up the Christmas tree, cuddling?
"Not the weirdest the thing I've seen this year," he reminded himself as he approached the tree, clearing his throat to get her attention.
The card startled, face turning red and shameful, like she'd just been caught at an illicit tryst.
"Well, I'm waiting."
The card gently slid down the tree, bashfully refusing to look directly at him. Harry could only shake his head. She looked so, innocent, so demure in her embarrassment, it was hard to be mad.
"Alright, you've had your fun. Time to go back in your card. WOOD."
With no resistance the avatar of the card returned to her sealed form which floated gently into Harry's hand. "If only they were all so easy."
"Arry! Arry, you get it?"
"Yeah, I think so!" he shouted back, quickly searching for a way to hide what had actually happened. In a hall full of roots and saplings, there was only one sacrifice he thought might suffice.
"Good thing they haven't decorated it yet," he said, turning his wand to the Christmas tree.