Let's Do It Right This Time, Chapter 29

Author's Note: So, I'm back! I wanted to get this out earlier, but I wasn't able to finish it until now; it would seem that writing is more compelling when one is trying to procrastinate studying for Anatomy... In any case, I hope you enjoy! Please note, if you are squeamish, you may want to skip the paragraph beginning with "Aurelius scarcely had time to recover from that" to "...hurried through the crypt as fast as he could." It is a little gruesome- probably canon-typical, considering some of the things in Halfblood Prince and Deathly Hallows, but if you don't want to read it, this is your party. Otherwise, enjoy!

Aurelius's phantasmagoric following led him through passageways so old that Hogwarts itself seemed to have forgotten them, as portraits were usually only kept in the newer or more used sections of the castle, so that their inhabitants could talk to (and apparently spy on) the students and staff. Aurelius crawled on his hands and knees in the dust of a passageway no taller than a house elf ("a servant's passageway", a young ghost in a pale golden mask told him, when he asked) and clambered out through a threadbare tapestry depicting Buchard the Cruel hunting a unicorn. Then he followed a cramped, slanted flight of stairs up so many flights his legs were aching, and descended another equally long one, following the Baron, who'd taken the lead.

And then, at last, the Baron came to a stop in front of a beautiful door. It was very tall, astonishingly so for being in a part of the castle where most of the other doors and passageways were four to five feet high, but the most striking part about it was not its height, or the deep, luxurious wood, or the fantastical carvings covering every inch of it. It was the fact that it had obviously been boarded up hastily (and poorly) with bare, splintery planks nailed over it and runes scratched sloppily on and around it. Shreds of warding hung, quivering in the air, and Aurelius's very core shrank back at the feel of the decaying magic. Above hung a piece of parchment, thin and frail as onionskin, upon which was written the inscription "Noli intrare, si te servare vis." Do not enter, if you would preserve your life. Aurelius felt a shiver run all down his spine.

"This is it?"

"Yes, little serpent," the Baron told him, something almost like approval touching his grim features. "I do hope you know how to dismantle the protections?"

"Well, they're not much of protections," Aurelius muttered, "But I'll do my best." He raised his hands, and, although he couldn't have known it, his eyes began to shine with his power. One by one, the dead wards were sloughed off, until at last there was nothing but planks and bare wood and runes that winked out like fireflies. Aurelius hesitated, then cast alohamora, only for the handle of the door to spit angry sparks. He frowned, staring at it, then cast a detection. It came back clean. "What…?" he began.

The Grey Lady laughed a little. "Not everything requires a magical solution, Lord Gaunt. Try the door."

Aurelius hesitantly put one hand on the handle, expecting a curse, or some sort of flash of light or magical sign. The door, however, seemed now to be perfectly ordinary, save for the workmanship. He wrestled open the latch, then pushed it so that it swung soundlessly inward. Aurelius took a careful step, and then another, until his feet moved off of the carven wood and onto a clayey earthen floor. Behind him, the door slowly ground back to its previous position, a system of pulleys dragging it back into place with only the slightest squeaking sound of wheels and elastic cording. The vague triangle of light seeping through the crack at the top of the doorframe disappeared within moments, and then Harry was caught in a darkness so absolute that even the creatures of the night might have cowered. A moment, and then the four Hogwarts patrons drifted through. Down here, they seemed almost solid in the darkness, and Aurelius could see every detail of their garments and every wrinkle on their faces.

"Here is where we leave you," The Fat Friar said, seriousness taking over his jovial features. "A journey to the Heart must be undertaken alone."

"I thought you were going to take me there? Do you have some kind of directions for me, or…?"

"Magic itself will guide you there, and you will know when you're in the right place. The Heart is like nothing else in the world."

Aurelius nodded. "So…I guess this is it then?"

"Yes," Nearly-Headless Nick told him, for once not fiddling with his partially-attached head. "Good luck, kid. I don't know much about the trials, since I wasn't an heir, but I know you can handle them."

"They're different for every heir, in any case." The Baron chipped in. "All you need to know is not to give up, and not to run scared, no matter what you see in that ritual."

Aurelius nodded. "I won't."

"Good luck and farewell," the ghosts chorused, and then, as quickly as they had materialized, they were gone, like moonlit mist dissolving in the wind.

It was black as pitch, and twice as oppressive. Aurelius wasn't sure if he was allowed to cast a lumos or a witchfyre charm, but at that moment a sudden chill wind seemed to rise, making the hairs stand up on the back of the young wizard's neck, and the passageway suddenly lit up dazzlingly bright with blue torches set into niches in the walls every five feet or so, and the walls seemed suddenly crawling with motion, until Aurelius realized that it was only the weird bluish shadows playing on reliefs carved into the walls between each niche. The air grew colder and the beaten clay floor damper the deeper he descended, and little here-and-gone noises put him on edge. He was about five hundred meters down the shaft when a poltergeist burst through the wall of the passage, grabbing a torch as it went.

"A little wizard!" it screamed in a high, thin voice, shaking the torch at him so that it splattered hot pitch, scorching his hair and bare arms. "How absolutely thrilling!" it shrilled, and then darted away, all the torches guttering at once in its wake.

Aurelius scarcely had time to recover from that (and try to cool the burn of the hot pitch still clinging from his arm) when he heard a horrible gurgling up ahead, and when he cautiously stepped forward, wand in a defensive position, seeing nothing, he was nearly blindsided by a half-rotted…thing, that might have been a creature at one time or another. It was only about three feet tall, with one greedy yellow eye and one blind white one (which looked like nothing so much as overcooked boiled egg), and it lurched after him on half-disintegrated legs, trying to leap at his face and slipping on its own foul slime. Aurelius shot an incendio, shaking with the adrenaline and the stench that followed the thing, and kept moving on, now far more wary than he had been. Ahead, the passageway bellied out into a large bulge of a chamber that seemed to be a crypt, judging by the sarcophagi and the little hollows in the rock where long-burnt-out oil lamps lay. Another of the ghoulish little things was sitting on one of the sarcophagi, slurping from what looked to be a canopic jar with its long purple tongue, but this one didn't attack him, so he just cast a bubblehead charm and hurried through the crypt as fast as he could.

Beyond, it was pretty much straight ahead for another half a kilometer or so, though Aurelius' eyes were strained by the blue light and his body strained by the walking and the anxiety. Then he came across a creature which started out of the clay at his feet, jaws gaping wide to display a slimy black throat and three rows of needle-sharp teeth, like an anglerfish's, and thanked Merlin that this place was not open for curious Hogwarts students to sneak into now. Beyond, he saw a few more ghosts, though most of them did not interact, only drifted by with fixed and staring gazes, and was startled once by what turned out to be a desiccated skeleton, thankfully not still alive, but which had obviously been elaborately readied for burial, dressed in fine robes, and having sapphires set into its face so that its eyes seemed to glitter in the crazy torchlight.

All at once Aurelius came to a place where the passage split into three. Two of the passages were lit up, one with a warm buttery light that made his eyes ache in relief after half a mile of nothing but oppressive blue shadows and one with a clear white glare that would not have be out of place in a hospital ward. The last, however, was totally dark. Above were three inscriptions in the rock, one in Old Welsh, one in Latin, and one in some language that Aurelius could not even guess at, except that it was probably not a human script. He frowned, squinting at the Latin passage, since he could read at least a little Latin. It was not even close to decent writing, as some of the words were pretty clearly Germanic in origin, except with a Latin ending clumsily affixed to the end; if he had to guess it was probably late medieval period. "Those who wish for all the…uh…that's probably not bribe-distributer…uh. All the riches of the gods? Yeah, that sounds about right. Those who wish for all the riches of the gods, follow this road. Those who wish for earth's greatest treasures, follow this road. Those who wish only for what…um…what…why is habere being used there? What they ought to have? Yeah. Those who wish only for what they ought to have, follow this road."

It felt distinctly like a trick question, like those fairytales where the fishwife wants to be empress and then God, and is instead left in her little mud hut, where she started from. Aurelius was certain that he was supposed to take the third path (it wouldn't be a mystical spirit quest without taking a leap of faith and walking into a pitch-dark tunnel, would it?) but it also felt foolish to just walk into a black pit based on vague and mystical instructions which could possibly have been mistranslated. Hogwarts herself, not to mention the war, depended on this!

And so Aurelius closed his eyes, and reached out with his core, trusting his powers to make the choice for him.

It felt like pure magic. That was the only way he could think to describe it. It had been strong enough, before, when he had hardly been paying any attention to the aura of the place, but now, as he was actively reaching out, trusting that the magic would show him the way, it seemed so strong he could barely stand it, magic bathing his skin and coating his lungs at every inhale with something thick and tangible. Slowly, second by second, he breathed through the initial shock, until he could reach further out, try to grasp the auras of the tunnels ahead.

He promptly recoiled with a hiss of shock, then tried again. At first, he seemed to sense three different and distinct flavors in the air. The first tunnel, that of the golden glow, reeked of power and danger like the Elder Wand had, and he almost turned back even though he was nowhere near the entrance. The second felt like a tangible temptation, the magical equivalent of a casino, bar, brothel and candy store all wrapped up in one. We know what you want, what you would never get for yourself, the magic whispered. We have it all. The third tunnel felt like death itself, stark and empty and dripping the promise of pain into the air. But something just…wasn't right, about any of it. It all felt contrived and too strong, like the magic was practically screaming in his ears. There was just…something…

Aurelius could feel a few loose threads of power hanging in the air. Idly, he tugged at them, and all at once all the once-overwhelming magic fell away in a tangle, leaving a blank wall and a little gibberish on it in something that did not even resemble anything like Latin, even bad Latin.

So, what, was he supposed to turn back? Had he failed the test? Aurelius could feel himself starting to hyperventilate, and took a few deep breaths, studying the wall for something he might have missed, like more Latin instructions, or a bit of warding that would hint at a way through. There was nothing that he could see, just a cracked stone wall. Idly, he began tracing one of the hairline fractures, up, and across, and down, and…wait a minute. He looked at it more intently. It was a very regular crack…could it be some sort of secret door?

"Alohomora?" he tried, feeling rather stupid. Nothing.

Well, what had he expected, using an unlocking charm on a wall?

He stared at it another moment, then, turned away. Then, in a fit of pique, he turned back and smacked the wall, hard, as his magic and anger boiled over. And all at once, he heard the groaning of ancient machinery somewhere beyond, the clicking of bolts sliding into place and the grinding of gears, and before he could even so much think to wonder what might be happening, light began to leak out the eerily regular cracks, and an entire section of the wall fell inward almost soundlessly, easing back until it was parallel with the floor of the passageway. Aurelius blinked at it, and then at his scraped palm, the Grey Lady's words ringing in his ears. "Not everything requires a magical solution, Lord Gaunt,"

Well, ok.

If there had been any more time, Aurelius would have wanted to stay and try to figure out more about the mechanism of that door, but he didn't know how long he'd already been here, since he didn't have a watch and time often passed more fluidly and chaotically in magical places anyway, like the time loop in the abandoned Alchemy classroom in Hogwarts. Plus he didn't know how long the ritual would take. There'd be time later…

So he just kept walking. This new passageway honestly seemed to be more of the same—blue witchfyre torches and eerie reliefs of relatively poor craftsmanship, the light and power in the air making the people look like starved corpses and the creature-races look monstruous, but as Aurelius continued on, he began to be aware of something of a change. The light grew paler, and the air warmer again, and the moist beaten clay below his feet began to grow gritty, sand packed into it in places. Further still, and the reliefs began to grow fewer and farther between, and the torches grew sputtery and thin. Not that it mattered, because Aurelius turned another corner, and all at once the world sang with radiance.

It was so bright Aurelius couldn't even see himself, at first. The sand was revealed as pure white, with flecks of black and gold, and the torches seemed no longer lit at all, although the faint halos of blue and the little trickles of grey smoke showed they had not gone out entirely. All of this, however, was dwarfed by the light pouring out through the great stone arch ahead.

The Heart of Hogwarts. Aurelius didn't even have to know the name to know that this was where he was meant to be. The very air here seemed gravid with something so ineffably magical that he could barely breathe, but as he took another step, screwing up his eyes, it seemed to relax, or maybe he grew accustomed to it, and all at once he stepped forward into the most beautiful room he had ever seen.

Years ago, when he had really, actually been eleven, he'd crossed a shining lake in a little boat, and entered Hogwarts for the first time, and got his first good look at the Great Hall, and he'd thought he would never see anything so amazing. This, though…it was so much more, that by comparison the Great Hall seemed like the Smeltings Assembly Hall.

The Heart of Hogwarts was enormous, a vast octagonal hall that seemed all the greater for the magic frothing in the air, so thick that it actually obscured the farthest corners, like smoke or mist. The floor was fine white sand, flecked with hints of gold and silver, and each panel of the wall looked to be carved from pure quartz, with scenes from what looked to be wizarding myth, as well as historical stories like the Founding of Hogwarts, etched on it in metallic purple and bearing hints of metals no longer extant. In the very center stood a great amethyst wardstone, spearing up through the sand, intricate layers of wards and spellcraft humming around the glorious stone. Above, a thousand crystals sparkled like pearlescent stained glass, and it was from them that the light was emanating. Aurelius lost himself in the magic and in the contemplation of the cavern for a long time, but at last, he pulled himself together. The ghosts had said there would be ritual supplies here?

There! He felt more than saw it at first, and walked back over to the entrance in something that might almost have been a trance, following his instincts and the shimmer of power in the air; there was an alcove just beside the door on the left side, and tucked away within it were four candles—one black, one white, and two golden—along with an earthenware jug of potion, a carven bone chalice, and a few little pots of ritual ointments. The candles had been burnt down almost to stubs, and there was not much ointment left in some of the pots, but Aurelius had been a wizard long enough to know that, especially with Old Magic, some of what might seem like the most important details often…weren't. The quality of the ritual tools really didn't matter as long as one had the power, the will and the intent, as ritual was a different sort of magic than, say, potion-making, different in the same way that making soup is to making candy. Substitutions, poor ingredients, poor instruments, a blunt athame…that didn't really matter, as long as one's will was sure and his intent followed the ritual. Whereas if one were to substitute a gram of unicorn horn for bicorn horn, his Draught of Invigoration would turn invisible and then explode, spraying invisible goop all over one and his workspace—one couldn't do that with potions.

Aurelius pulled the tools out and set them reverently on the sand. He hadn't exactly been coached for any of this, but golden candles meant fortune and victory, and black meant…a lot of things, but probably not death here, so mystery and power—wasn't there something about ritual amplification in A History of Magic? —while white candles were for protection and connection to that which is greater than the self, usually used for kenning and enlightenment rituals. Interesting choices, but he could definitely see how this could work. He trailed his fingers over the tools, trying to get a feel for the ritual. The candles…were to be set on all four sides of the wardstone, with the white one facing the door, the black one on the other side, and the gold ones flanking it to the left and the right, so he picked them up and placed them. They were little more than stubs of wax with a bit of burnt wick and a few clumps of sand set in the dry wax from so many uses, but they felt like enough as he lit them. He followed that up by drawing a few runes on himself in the spell-ointments; he had not known they would be necessary, or planned on it, but it just felt…right. Finally, he decanted a gobletful of the potion, put the jars and goblets up in the alcove again (as one thing that he'd been taught ought to be scrupulously kept when doing a ritual is, no matter what the quality of the tools, the space must be orderly), and raised the age-old potion to his lips.

Aurelius had had to take many, many potions in his life, a number of them medicinal, and all of them had mostly been a study in trying to choke down things which were made of dog's tongues and hemlock and tasted pretty much exactly like their contents. This, though…the thick lavender and gold potion tasted rich and warm and almost filling, like hot chocolate on a miserable winter day.

His head spun.

The world was going slippery and fluid, the magic in the Heart swelling until it felt like a wave, undulating, making everything sway around him…or was that just his legs?

Whoa. This…felt…odd…

Aurelius staggered forward, towards the wardstone and the candles which cast flame-coloured halos against the sand and amethyst, something tugging at him beyond his control or comprehension. Then, at last, he fell to his knees before the stone. His stomach and throat quivered, as though he might be sick, but when he opened his mouth, words of a language he didn't even speak poured out, ringing in the heavy air. "Yr wyf yn gosod fy hun ger bron y Galon, ac yn erfyn am gael fy ngweled a'm cael yn deilwng i warchod yr hwn yw fy nghartref," he panted, shaking with the power rising up in his core. The candles flared up, spearing towards the crystal cealing above, and the wardstone began to shine, dimly. Aurelius himself felt as if he were floating, sick and dizzy and lost, like that one and only time he'd had to have surgery, and the nurse had given him esther."Yr wyf yn cario gwaed y Sefydlwyr cyntaf, yr wyf yn cario ysbryd dewin cywir, ac yr wyf yn cario'r bwriad i amddiffyn, i lywodraethu, i anrhydeddu, ac i aberthu y cyfan i'r lle hwn, beth bynnag a ofynna hi." What in Merlin's name was happening to him? "Gadewch i ni'n dau fod yn gaeth a byth yn chwalu, a gadewch i'm gwaed, craidd ac enaid adlewyrchu fy nghartref." The light had grown almost blinding now, and Aurelius couldn't have stood even had he wanted too, his knees too weak to hold him up. He slid sideways, too dizzy even to wonder if he was going to botch the ritual, and words kept pouring out, gushing hotly out of his throat. "...Rwy'n addo bod yn ffyddlon bob amser i'r lle hwn, ac i'r rhai sy'n dod i ddysgu. Bydded Hogwarts yn noddfa unwaith eto, dan warchodaeth Ei gwir Etifedd."

Something seemed to snap in that moment, and the light grew still more blinding, and all at once Aurelius felt the stars exploding in his vision swell to blot out the whole of the chamber, and then he was gone.

Who might say what dreams came in that formless time? Within a cocoon of magic in the Heart of Hogwarts, the erstwhile heir Hogwarts, Lord of Gaunt, and Peverall, and so many other houses, hero, and martyr, and child soldier, lay still and insensate. Formless terrors raked claws of adamantium down his back, and shadows of the past, ghosts so ancient they had lost both form and voice, absorbed into the magic of the place, swept over him. He trembled in his magic shroud, feverish and lost as his core swelled and his magic integrated with the castle around him, sinking into the stones, curling shimmering tendrils through every tapestry and over every statue. In the kitchens, the house elves, first to feel any change in the place that they were bonded to since birth, drew closer to one another and began to talk in hushed voices, forgetting their mops and their brooms and the food in the ovens as they gathered around one very old elf who was almost ecstatic as he told them that the last time he had felt this was in the time of 'Good Mistress Milune', the last Lady Hogwarts. In the enchanted forest, Aragog and his brood hissed in discontent, and the unicorns stirred and raised their heads, and the centaurs, wide eyed, spoke one to another of the omens in the changing seasons and how Venus was visible even in daytime. Fang, in Hagrid's hut, raised his head, baying out to the skies, and the Whomping Willow went still for the first time in a century, and every corner of Hogwarts and the grounds around, even to the motes of dust hanging in the air, tensed in anticipation. The ghosts rustled restlessly, visible even in the daytime, and every student and every teacher felt...something rippling outward. And still Aurelius writhed and trembled in the grip of the fever that had seized him, and his core swelled so much that magic leaked from beneath his clenched eyelids, and seeped from every pore in his body.

And then, after countless hours in that timeless place, Aurelius opened eyes now as deeply gold as the detailing on the Hogwarts crest, and realized he could feel everything.

Supposed translation for the Welsh- from Google Translate, so if you actually speak Welsh, I'm sorry for offending you in any way:

I place myself before the Heart, and beg that I may be seen and found worthy to guard this which is my home. I carry the blood of the first Founders, I carry the spirit of a true wizard, and I carry the intent to protect, to rule, to honor, and to sacrifice all for this place, whatsoever She requires. Let we two be bonded and never dissevered, and let my blood, core and soul reflect my home. I pledge to be loyal always to this place, and to those who come to learn. Let Hogwarts be a sanctuary once again, guarded by Her true Heir.