Harry Potter and the year of Darkness
Part six: Alone in the Darkness
The world refused to come back to Harry. Oh, it was easy enought to full everyone, to make them think he was okey, but he wasn't. He was having O.B.E.s each night, assending higher all the time. It was not long before he could reach a world of pure color, light, and emmotion. A world were he was simply a dake spot on a rainbow. He longed to go higher, to a place were people only thought, but they didn't have to feel.
Voldemort was still at large. Five people have been killed since chrismas holidays. In that school year alone, Voldemort had killed twenty-five people. Harry almost shivered when he thought of that. Almost. He suddenly understood why everone was so scared of voldemort. Twenty-five people were dead. And the school year wasn't even over yet. There was still one week left.
As ussual for that time of year, the library wa steh place to be. Even Draco Malfoy had been seen studying. It was a miricle (really it was), though Harry doubted it would help his grades. Maybe, if he was lucky, the slytherin would fail completely and Harry would never see him agien. Maybe.........
Harry was reading a his transfiguration book in an arm chair by the fire. It was pretty earlt in the day, but still, Harry felt tired. He didn't really want to go to sleep. He had woken up with a taste in his mouth like peper. Harry bagn to dose off....
"My darling, my sweet dareling. Here you are my dareling. See? The Perfectulous Potion was useful," a robed and masked figure said. Another robed figure standing near if nodded.
"Not really," a small figure spatt. "Thye haven't even noiticed that I'm gone yet, mother. We don't have any classes till after lunch today. And even then, people aren't as dumb as they were last year. No one will come top rescue me this time, mother."
A cruel laugh came form the cloaked figure. "Don't worry, Gretchen, my dareling. No one needs to come a save you this time. No....I love you my dareling," the cloaked figure said as she reached into the pockets of her robes, "this is for the best......"
Harry awoke. Gretchen, the thought quickly through the pain in his scare, gone. Then another thought. Why don't I care?
"Tired Harry?" Gretchen asked as she walked up to him. Harry almost gasped, but was able to choke it back. This was impossible. He had just seen Gretchen in one of his Voldemort dreams. She had to be.........
He had't felt anything when he saw it. It made sense. He felt nothing, and nothing happened. Gretchen was fine. But was he?
"So, are you ready for the tests?" Harry said casually. Gretchen shrugged.
"I suppose. Have you seen Ronald Weasly?" she asked.
"Yeah," Harry said. "Ron's with Hemrione in the library. Why?" Gretchen shrugged. Then she turned around and left.
"Hi, Harry!" said Hemrione as she entered the room. "Have you seen, Gretchen?"
"She just went to go see Ron," Harry said.
"Oh," Hermione said. "Well, come on, Harry. Let's go!" With that Hemrione seiced Harry's hand and drahgged him out of the commen room towards the library.
"Ahhh......" A muffeled sound came from the wall next to them. Harry looked and saw the witch who hid the path to Hogsmeded next to them. Hemrione rolled her eyes.
"Funny, Myrtle," she said. Agien their was a groan, almost a word.
"'Aaaaaaaaaaarrrrrr," it said. Hermione rolled her eyes agien. She and Harry walked on.
"Out of alllll things to do! You'd think she would just leave people alone now that
she has Neville as her boy toy," Hermioen said agrily. "But no she still has to.....Ahh!"
Harry and Hemrione were falling. "Potter! Granger!" someone shouted, but Harry barely heard. He was falling...falling....falling......
"Harry," someone said. "Harry, wake up." Harry fluttered his eyes open. Ron and Hermione were kneeling over him. "He's awake," Ron said over his shoulder to a forth person in the room. The red head then turned his attention back to Harry. "You fell threw the ceiling, or the floor, or something," he explained as he helped Harry sit up. "Gretchen an I were already here when you and Hermione fell. We're all fine, but you hit your head."
"Do you why we're here?" Harry said as he looked aroudn the room. It was so fimiliur. The stone hall he realized as he looked around at the brightly colored fires that came form torches on the wall.
"No idea," Hermione said. Harry climbed to his feet and looked around. Gretchen was standing underneath the Gryffindor torch, muttering something so quietly that Harry culdn't understand a word of what she was saying.
"Looking for a way out?" he asked. She turned around suddenly, as if surprised by his presence. She studies him closely, fear and anger in her eyes. She took a deep breath.
"Yes," she said sharply, "but it seems that there is no way out to be found." Harry shock his head. There had to be some way out, or at least a way of discovering why they were there. "I'm serious, Harry," she said, "there's no door."
"Of course there isn't. This is the stone hall," Harry said. "The walls open up. If only we knew how to make them do that......."
"The point is, Harry, that we don't know how to make them do that," Grtechen said stiffly. "If we did we'd be out of here by now." She walked away from his and stood by the Slytherin torch were she started muttering to herself agien.
"What's up with her?" Ron wondered aloud. He started looking at the gryffindor toarch. He kicked the wall a few times. Nothing happened. He yelled at it. "Open up," he commanded. And still nothing happened, to the Gryffindor toarch. The Slytherin toarch, however, seemed to suddenly become alive. It swong aside revealing a black key. Gretchen took it in her hands and fingered it ligthly. THen she walked up to the stone in the middle of the room and placed the key on top of it. "Let his door be open," she said loudly.
The room began to shake. Gretchen held out her hand, and slowly, it bagn to change. It grew larger, as all her body did, and the skin became older. Her hair became shorter and her eyes chnagered color. Her every feature became harsh and cruel an ddevious. In fact, she wasn't Gretchen Locus at all, she was her mother, Winetta.
A hand covered in a black glove grabbed Winetta's. She helped the hands owners climb up from a sudden pit that had formed in the room.
Lord Voldemort was at Hogwarts.
Suddenly, Harry could feel agien.
He felt Fear.
Behind him, Harry could hear Hermione scream. Voldemort laughed. Harry felt like someone was sticking needles in his head because of it. He longed to do something. To curse Voldemort. To fight somehow. To make the man pay for ever pain that he's ever caused. Harry serched his robe for his wand, but it was gone. Voldemort had it in his evil hand.
"Alas, Harry Potter. We meet agien," he said.
"Where's Gretchen," harry shouted. "What have you done with her." Winetta smiled.
"That distraction has been delt with," she said smiling. "But please, don't call her Gretchen. Call her number twebty-six." Ron gasped and Hemrione started ti cry. Harry did nothing. He didn't even breath. How could she be dead? He would have known if she died, he just knew it!
Harry Potter knew that he was connected to Gretchen Locus in some weird way, though he had no idea how. He tried, though he wasn't sure how, to look for her with his mind. Or, maybe, something beyoung his mind. He tried to touch her, to here her thoughts. All he could feel was something of a mentle hurricane as opposed to the nirvana (Buddhist word for a state of perfect understanding, no I'm not Buddhist, we're just studying that stuff in school) he expected. He tried to stop all these thoughts and feelings from moving so quickly. And suddenly......He had felt something. How could she be ded? He had felt soemthing.......
"You killed her," Harry said finilly. Voldemort and Winetta laughed.
"Oh, she's good as dead," Winetta the deatheater said iceilly. "We left her to die in a place no body knows about. Though, Harry, I believe you know what I'm talking about. We left her in a passageway. Right behind a one eyed witch. That's what we used to get in here ourselves, you know."
Harry lunged. He knocked Winetta down and started hitting her. Voldemort grabbed his wand and threw Harry across the room. He hit the wall with a loud smack and found that he was being tied of with chains coming from the Slytherin toarch.
The prince and peincess of evil laughed. Winetta licked the blood of her lip. Voldemort clapped. "That was, by far, and interesting stunt, Harry. By far. I'm sure Gretchen would have found it terribily amusing. Don't you agree, Ron? Hermione?"
Harry looked over at his two remaining best freinds. What on earth did Voldemort want to do with them? "Leave them alone," he managed to shout. The two laughed agien. More deatheaters climbed out of the floor, each of them joining in the laughter. One of them grabbed Hermione, covering her mouth with his hand to keep her from screaming. Another grabbed Ron. Harry's best freind kicked and struggeled, but to no avial. Still more deatheaters came. The last two Harry knew: Lusius Malfoy and Wormtail. They were carring a brown rug.
"Ah," said Voldemort. "I see you've brought Potter my gift. Come, Harry. Come and see what I have for you." The ropes that bpund Harry to the wall retreated. Harry fell to the ground. He stood up and dusted himself off. His back hurt from hitting the wall and his scar burned in Voldemort's presence. Still, he took a step forward, and then another step, till he stood over the drown rug. Every eye was upon him. Immeadiately, Harry knew what the rug would hold, and he knew that he did want to see. But somehow, he couldn't stop himself from kneeling down before the rug. Or lifting the material, to see what treasure it held..............
It indeed did hold a treasure. A beautiful treasure that Harry had loved so much for long. A treasure that had been stolen. A treasure that had lost it's glow. Beneath the blanket was a tre sure, the beautiful, naked body of beaten and battered Gretchen Locus. The body that was now dead.
Harry could feel his hands tremble as he slowly placed one upon her neck. It was true. Gretchen was dead. He had known when suddenly he had heard nothing and felt everything. He had known. But still, he refused to believe it. Harry took his free hand a stroked her cheek. He scanned her with his eyes. He had once fantised about seeing her nude. She was just as beautiful as he ever thought she would be. Harry noiticed an odd mark on her left hip that resembeled a scar, and Harry suddenly wondered why it was there, though he really didn't care. He bent doen every so gentlely and placed one last kiss upon her lips.
Nothing happened when their lips met. Instead of being taken to a peaceful place, Harry was more aware then ever of how horrible everything was. There was nothing left of the beautiful girl he loved. Nothing. The glow that she had, her light in this darkness, had been put out. Harry was in darkness now, but he was alone. Alone in the darkness. Without Gretchen.
Harry raised his head and looked at her one last time, before recovering her form with the blanket. Then he turned to Voldemort. "She's not dead," he said suddenly. He remebered Dumbledore's words from his third year. "Those who are gone never truely leave us. You will never be able to kill Grtechen Locus. You'll never be able to kill my parents. You'll never be able to kill anyone," Harry said calmly.
A child's voice was heard in the room. "He's right."