"Thomas, why did it have to be you?" Professor Barlow stood before Thomas. Gone was his fun strike blue hair, kilt and robe. Instead, he stood in black. A heavy, cold black that hung around him. Like a ghost in a girl's lavatory, but with a darkness that no ghost at Hogwarts would have as their own.
His face looked pinched, it looked like to Thomas, that he was in a great deal of pain. Shadows begged his eyes. Aging him, changing him. Into what Thomas couldn't begin to guess. No, Thomas's hand shook as he pulled his hand back. Willing, yet unwilling, to believe, but ready to take his wand if needed too. Maybe, Thomas hoped — he was reading these all wrong.
Thomas looked around and strung up in the air. Was an image so horrible. Thomas's mouth opened, but not even a voiceless scream could escape from his throat. A dozen students. Hung like fish drying on unseen racks. Face twisted in different expressions — all of them were more wretched than next. Thomas looked on, placing a hand to his lips, to stop the acid from spilling from his mouth. Tasting his lunch on his tongue.
A clear image of each person. Made it impossible to deny that they were the missing student. Only a thin white outline. Shimmering, fading, dying... Made them even visible. Thomas glanced away, shaking, his breaths coming out in pants. Kept his mind from falling into a tunnel of panic. Unwilling to run away, Thomas looked again into the faces of the students he didn't know. Looking for the one he did.
Thomas looked at the three long rows. Both boys and girls, hung without reason. Some screamed without voices, mouths open, noses scrunched into their eyes. Others, were strung arms out, with their heads down, passed out, a small blessing Thomas imagined.
The ones on the bottom row. Looked much worse than the others. Their heads tilted back, eyes blank and unseeing. A white fog seeping out of their open lips. With a smell, a smell so vile. Thomas could only compare it to the unseen, horror hanging over them all. Death. It smelled of death. In that death he saw nothing, but a backdrop of a green still pond.
Like the poets wrote about, it appeared to Thomas that this room must have been a huge temple room. With pillars and carved serpents. There is a massive statue of a man, a wizard with his hand outstretched. Thomas felt very little hope in this place, but he had to try. Fighting back his fear. Thomas turned and looked at Professor Barlow once more.
"Please tell me Professor," Thomas asked, he looked him straight in the eyes. "Please say you're here to help them." Thomas looked to the man who had shown him kindness. Who had taught him how to fly on a broom without fear? That had offered his tea, and advice. Surly, that colourful man, despite his new black robes. Could it not be bad?
"Thomas," Professor Barlow's eyes shook. His mouth quivered, but remained closed. When he turned away. Thomas had his answer. With a swirl of his robe, Thomas also says to girls. One was clearly Daniel's sister, and the other one was...
"Pipa!" Thomas called out. Grateful that she looked better than the rest. Her boy was more viable. More defined. From where he stood, Thomas could see a little mouse. Sitting on her chest. Feet moving towards her on instinct. Professor Barlow turned back around. Wand pointed at Thomas's face.
"Why did you have to come here?" Professor Barlow asked him. Thomas took a step back and took his wand out of his holster. Shaking like a leaf, he kept it at his side, unable to lift it and point it at his Professor. "Why?!" Sparks flew out the end of his wand.
"I had to save Pipa..." Thomas winced at the white sparkles sparking off.
"Why are you here at Hogwarts!" Professor Barlow yelled at Thomas. He could see tears budding on his lashes. "Why do you have to remind me of her?!" The tears started to fall, glitter pale green in the light of the room.
"Her, sir?" Thomas asked him. He wanted to help him. Recalling his words to Lars and Bernard not even an hour ago. I have to be a good man. Thomas reminded himself. Tightening his fist around his wand. Good men do not abandon people to bad places. Thomas changed one thing about it, what he said earlier.
"Lenore, my sweet little vampire wife." The Professor cried in earnest. Tears falling hard, and coating his face. "Who would have so much loved to have you." Thomas's mind was struggling to make sense of a difficult situation. He doesn't have much headspace to deal with everything else that needed his attention.
"Your wife was a vampire, sir?" Thomas asked, vowing that he would help this man in front of him. Pipa needed him, but so did the Professor. Thomas was not hiding. That was what he would do, in the past. Hiding behind Lars, Bernard, and even Professor Nocturne. He wanted to be the good man, even though he was still a boy, he also wanted to save a good person. The person he felt that Professor Barlow was.
"Lenore, looked so much like you. So small, so sweet, so worried about others." Professor Barlow shook, "She wanted a boy like you so bad, and that took her away from me!" Professor Barlow shot his wand to the side. Breaking the stone wall with a hole the size of him. Making Thomas wince and jump. "Witches and wizards alike! Hated vampires!" Professor Barlow shot another shot into the ceiling this time. "Hated her!"
"Professor!" Thomas shouted, running as the tumble of rock came raining down from him from above. "I understand that — I do!" Thomas tried to talk to him. Like how Pipa had understood, when she had spoken to him at the library.
"Of course you do!" Professor Barlow said, turning on him. Anger turning his body into a terrifying tower. "I heard what they did to you. The orphanage they put you into!" Professor Barlow gritted his teeth, yellow through them with a hiss. "Had I known about you then, had we known. I wouldn't have lost her! I wouldn't be alone!"
"You're not alone, Professor! Your students. These students!" Thomas pointed to the souls of the pained. "Me," Thomas's voice wavered. "I care about you! Please, Professor help them." Help me, Thomas begged he felt his own eye begin to well up. He thought he wouldn't cry — the brave didn't cry, but Thomas couldn't stop the tears.
"Please," Thomas begged again, and for some reason, his mind kept racing to Pipa words in the library. 'You worry about a lot of things, huh?' Pipa had told him, while pulling on her pigtails with her hands.
"It's too late for that, Thomas." Professor Barlow tears stopped, and looked at Thomas. Only looked.
"Professor it's too late." Thomas waved his wand free hand about. "I don't know what this is, but stop it, and it'll all go away." Thomas's heart was pounding in a wild, rapid, beast -filled with fear, and worried. 'My mom says worrying is how she cares, and you care about others.' Pipa's voice chimed in his head. Thomas looked away, and looked at Pipa.
"No, if I bring him back. Even silver. They bring her back to me." Professor Barlow tilted his head back, his back slouching. He looked like a marionette cut off at the strings. Broken and alone on a stage.
"Who's back?" Thomas asked, taking a deep breath while taking that step forward. 'Thomas.' Pipa whispered, and he could feel a pull on his robe. Knocking Thomas to his side. Right then, Thomas kissed the water coated stone floor, and a spell stuck behind him. The source — Professor Barlow.
"I must bring him back, even a part of him. A memory." Professor Barlow looked at Thomas. His eyes unseeing, nothing but mirrors reflecting the room. "With the Dark Lord back, or at least his power. He can wreak destruction. On those, who would rather of people like you, my wife labelled as monster." Professor Barlow lifted his wand to his nose. A faint light shining in his eyes. "We will remind them what true monsters are — Thomas. So sleep, and it'll all be over."
"No!" Thomas yelled and rolled dodging the next spell. 'Thomas, you are also brave.' Pipa had told him, she had looked at him with her brown eyes. Looking into his eyes unblinking. Her eyes had filled with tears, her words so earnest. She couldn't let her die. Not for this. Not for anything!
"Stay out of my way. It'll be over soon. The girl may be strong, but she too grows weaker." Professor Barlow tried spelling Thomas again. Thomas moved faster than any other twelve year old could. Why? Because he was no ordinary wizard. 'What I'm trying to say. Is that you are a great guy Thomas.' Pipa whispered in his ears, though she laid there on the ground, nothing but a naked soul.
"Your friend Pipa. If it wasn't for that mouse, whatever that beast may be, she would have already perished to my spell." Professor Barlow's were coming more often, but to Thomas. They appeared slow, and he was dodging them with ease. "She is a much-needed sacrifice. Think of your own future! Stay still Thomas!" Professor Barlow shouted his name. Growling like an angry dog.
"Think of yours!" Thomas yelled back, waving his wand in a large loop, he cast the only spell he could think of. "Lumos Solem!" A thin, white light appeared in a beam. Blinding Professor Barlow, as he yelled and turned away from the light blinding him. Thomas ran to the girls side, to Pipa's soul. He didn't know if he could break whatever kept her, and them here, but he had to try.
"Pipa, Pipa, please wake up!" Thomas begged the sleeping soul, the ghost-like image of Pipa. He tried to shake her, but his hands went straight through. Chilling them to the bone. "Flee from here, please!"
"I didn't want to do this Thomas!" Professor Barlow turned to Thomas. Thomas lifted his head, only to the one already in motion. "Imperio!" Thomas shook, and acted without thinking. 'I'm sure you'll make a great vampire — if you let yourself be one.' Pipa was there for him again, wiping her eyes with her sleeve. "Don't let the past with that Professor ruin your future with us." Thomas remembered every quiver of her lips, when she gave him that wobbling smile. "Please."
"Move!" Thomas demanded of himself. Jumping high, dodging the attack, but his flight came to an end when he struck the ceiling. "Ah!" Thomas cried out. The air rushing out of him. He fell to the floor with an unforgiving thump. "!" Thomas coughed up his body quivering over the shock of the double blows.
"That was unnecessary." Professor Barlow stood over him. Wand at the ready. Thomas could only look up. "Don't look at me like that. It won't change a thing, only by helping them. Can I bring her back." Thomas didn't know what Imperio did as a spell, but he knew in his gut. That he didn't want that spell placed on him.
"Mother!" Thomas didn't know what possessed him to cry out for her. He hadn't met either one of them, but he had spoken to one. That word had slipped from his lips, he thought of the only one he had spoken to. The one who had spoken to him, through Lars.
"What?" Professor Barlow said, making Thomas creak open one eye. Professor Barlow looked pale, and then he turned around and began to run. Thomas looked behind him. Water, like a tidal wave was coming down the corridor he had walked down to get here. It was coming fast. Thomas couldn't get to his feet fast enough.
A large movement of water formed by the funnelling of the narrow corridors. Rushed over Thomas, he struggled to stay by Pipa's side, by getting swept up in the current. It was not cold, but warm water. Thomas grabbed at his pocket, remembering his newborn snake. His animal to call, but the waves were too much.
Though he could breathe, the struggle against the water didn't stop. Thomas never once had he experienced anything deeper than a bathtub. He felt like he was being swallowed alive. That the water was taking him down, swallowing him. Thomas started to see little black dots form in front of his eyes.
"Good, for a first try. My little warrior." Thomas remembered that voice. It was rough, and abrasive, but it felt... caring. Those were Thomas's last thoughts, before the water drifted him away.