CHAPTER THREE : THE PORTAL
After lunch they went to Transfiguration. On their way, they met Cho and her friends. They were whispering things Harry could not hear. He saw that Cho was extremely sad. Harry tried to go closer to them to hear what they said. The only words that Harry caught were "Come on, Cho, you cannot bring him back to life. He is dead.", from one of her friends. Then they did not say anything else. When they started talking again, Ron interrupted Harry from listening.
"What's that?" he asked. He pointed to a red smoke in front of the transfiguration class.
"Looks like some smoke..." Hermione answered.
The source of the smoke was a red circle-shaped thing. Harry recognized it. It was a portal. The only time he had seen one was in one of his dreams about Voldemort. He knew that portals were not only for transporting people from one place to another. Some portals could have special powers. Some could give a person some extra energy to help him to cast spells with increased effect. Some had healing powers. There even were portals which could kill you if you got close.
Ron and Hermione stared at the portal still walking to the classroom. Harry stopped.
"Harry, what exactly is that thing?" Ron asked again.
"Stop." Harry told them. Then he thought for a moment. Ron and Hermione looked anxious to hear what he had to say; they surely figured out that Harry knew about them by the look on his face. "It is a portal..." said Harry.
"A portal?" Hermione asked before Harry could even finish the sentence. "I have heard about them..."
"I know exactly what they are. They can be created only with a very strong magic, but... No living person from our time has it... To do a portal you need a so strong magic that not even Dumbledore or Voldemort have. I have read that those strong wizards disappeared about three centuries ago."
"But..." Hermione said, "There must be a wizard with great powers if someone conjured it!"
Harry explained them what he read in "Ancient magic effects" about portals. Ron looked terrified when he told them they could kill. Hermione turned back and ran away.
"Where are you going?" Harry asked. "We are supposed to be in transfiguration!"
"To the library!" she answered and disappeared out of sight. It was unusual for Hermione to not go to a class. Harry and Ron did not move at all. Harry hoped it was not a killing one or a curse one, which could cast a random curse on someone.
Ten minutes passed. All the students who had to go to transfiguration stood near the place Harry and Ron were. Hermione hadn't returned from the library yet. No one said anything. All were waiting to see what happened next. The entire hallway was filled with red smoke.
They heard footsteps approaching. Someone was coming to them. Harry looked back. It was Dumbledore. He had a serious look; he did not look as he usually looked. He looked straight to the portal.
All the students were looking at him now. Harry figured out that Dumbledore was how he never saw him before: scared.
He got close to the portal and took his wand. Harry noticed that Dumbledore was muttering something. His wand pointed to the portal, and it created a jet of fire that hit the portal in the middle.
The portal changed color to a dark blue. The smoke changed, too. A small lightning exited from the portal and hit Dumbledore's wand. Dumbledore stepped back. The lightning stopped.
"Harry!" it was Hermione. "Oh..."
The portal doubled its size. And they could hear a cold voice saying something that Harry did not recognize. The cold voice was not Voldemort's. Dumbledore starting talking to the portal.
"Who are you?" he asked. He did not look scared anymore. "Talk to me!"
The portal turned back to the normal size. Dumbledore shouted: "Zappus!" and a bolt of electricity shot out of his wand. It hit the portal, which started to reflect it. Even that the bolts did not reach him, Harry felt as he was put under high voltage. He closed his eyes. After a few seconds, the sound caused by Dumbledore's lightning bolt and the portal reflecting it disappeared. Even the high voltage disappeared. Harry opened his eyes.
Dumbledore was nowhere in the hall. Everyone looked confused. The door to the transfiguration classroom opened and professor McGonagall appeared from it.
"What happened?" she asked immediately.
All the students started talking in the same time. No one heard anything except their own voice.
"SILENCE!!!" she shouted at them. The hallway went quiet. "Enter the classroom!"
All the students walked slowly to the classroom, where McGonagall was waiting for them on her seat. They all sit down, still very quiet. In the transfiguration lessons was usually quiet, but this time, it was even more. Every single student looked scared. Professor McGonagall did not say anything for a time, but then she decided it was better to speak.
"Tell me what exactly happened in the corridor", she said. None of the students were likely to say anything. Harry tried to speak twice, but he stopped after his own word. He had no idea how to describe the events. Then he was confident on himself and tried at last...
"It was a portal, professor. A red one was placed exactly in front of the entrance to the classroom." He paused after every two or three words, to think what to say next. "We waited for something to happen, and finally professor Dumbledore came... He shot some spells to it, he talked to it..." Harry stopped completely. He sit down. He had no words in his mind. He was thinking. Thinking about all the events that happened last time. First, Malfoy did not come to school. Second, a black metal door appeared, blocking his way to the bedroom. Then, a portal appeared in the school and that was the most surprising thing because there were no known wizards who could create one.
McGonagall was quite scared. She told them, "Class dismissed" and she got out of the room.
The other students stood up, and walked very slow to the gryffindor tower. None of them spoke. They had given the Fat Lady the password(StarCraft) and entered the tower. There was a complete quiet in the common room for several minutes. Then, Harry broke up the silence.
"What could make it?" he asked.
No one answered. He repeated the question, but with the same effect.
"Oh come on, you won't stay all the day without saying anything!!!" he said, not being scared anymore. In fact, he felt quite normal. He went to the library to see the book he where read about portals...
He ran on the corridors, Thankfully he did not meet Snape. He stepped into the library, where Madam Pince watched him to see what book he wanted. He knew what he was looking for - "Ancient magic effects". It took about ten minutes to find it. He took it and ran to the gryffindor common room. He told the fat lady the password and opened the book. It looked like no one spoken or moved all the time he was gone.
He threw the book on a table and sit on his chair. The book was already opened, and Harry turned to a page, and read silent about portals. Then, he felt something strange again...
The book had only a page about portals, and there were very few things explained. Harry knew about portals more than he read in the book. But how?
He had never seen one. The only time he saw about them was in this book, in the holiday he spent at Hogwarts. But he knew more things about portals than he read.
Everyone was quiet. Even Harry did not say anything. They stood there until some gryffindors second years entered the room. They looked quite confused. It was not a normal thing that the gryffindor fifth years stood quiet.
The second years did not seem interested about the situation. Then, Harry looked at a clock and saw that they stood there for a hour. He stood up and exited the common room. He was going to Dumbledore.
The time he reached the marble staircase that lead to Dumbledore's office looked like an hour. Then, he saw the gargoyle in front of the door.
Harry knew, or he thought he did, the password.
"Voldemort!" he said. The gargoyle moved from its place. The door to Dumbledore's office slid open. Dumbledore's office was empty. Harry looked in the room, and saw Fawkes, Dumbledore's phoenix. He looked quite cheerful. The last of their meeting was three months ago, when Harry told Dumbledore and Sirius what happened after he was transported to the graveyard where Voldemort re-came to power.
Harry stood there some time, and the door slid open. It was... none other than Cornelius Fudge, the minister of magic.
"Harry!" he said. "Hello".
"Good day!" he said.
"I apologize for not believing your stories in your third and fourth years." Harry felt relieved. He was scared of Fudge, but now he seemed normal... whatever meant normal for Fudge. "But i can not understand how could it happen?"
Harry stood quiet. He, in fact, wanted to speak to Dumbledore. But he wanted to ask a question, which he couldn't: why was Fudge here? Maybe he heard about the portal, but it was almost impossible. The portal appeared only an hour and a half ago.
"What are you doing here?" Fudge asked Harry.
"I need to speak -- with professor Dumbledore" Harry answered.
"Oh, yes, of course. By the way, thank you, I did not know the password."
Then, Harry understood why Dumbledore put that password. It was mainly because everyone feared saying the name, except a few people. And that made sure his office was protected.
He stood quiet, until Fudge started talking again.
"Was that true the fact that a door stopped you entering the bedroom?"
"Yes."
"It is a thing that no one could explain -- yet. We thought that it was created by you-know-who, but why would he do it with no purpose? So that theory went out. I am here to inspect the enchantments at this castle. It looks like something is wrong..."
Harry was reminded about the door. He said in a hurry "I have to go, Minister." and ran out of the office. He looked quite like Hermione; he went to the library again. He wanted to search for a spell that could create the door. Then a thought came in his mind. There were many spells that could create a door. But not many so strong to penetrate the Hogwarts' magical fields. Or was Fudge right when he said that something was wrong with it?
He reached the library. He asked Madam Pince, even thought he did not think he will receive any answer for such a question, if she knew what spells protected the castle. She reacted just as he thought.
"The spells? I cannot tell you that, and even I don't know all of them... The ministry and Dumbledore keep most of them a secret."
Harry wanted to find the spell that created the door. But he realized Fudge had to be right. There should have been a problem with the enchanting.
Walking up to the gryffindor tower, Harry met exactly the person he wanted to meet. Dumbledore. He had his wand out, and a small electrical bolt still shot out of it.
"Harry, I think there are very important matters to discuss", he said. "The portal is not a normal thing, not in our times." He was now as serious as possible. This was very important if Dumbledore was not "normal"(the way he was usually). "The only wizards capable of creating one have disappeared a very long time ago. There is no known wizard who can create one. But there is. We have no idea who. I think you were the one who saw the portal first?"
"No. It was Ron." said Harry.
"You were with him right?" Harry nodded. "You know about portals, don't you? I remember seeing you reading "Ancient magic effects"."
Harry's mind filled with a question. How did he know more about portals than he read?
He decided to ask that to Dumbledore. "How indeed... How indeed". He seemed he returned to his "normal". "Do you have any more questions, Harry?"
"Yes, one..." he answered. "What did you do with the portal?"
Dumbledore paused for a few seconds. Then, he started talking: "The only ways to find out what a portal does is to shoot a spell to it, or risk and go yourself. I tried a small fire to see what happens. It was obvious it was a teleportation one. I tried to shoot lightning to it, to see if it has extra powers. The lightning was reflected; I suppose the entire school felt the shock. Then I entered it, knowing that it was not dangerous. And I was transported to a large field. I did not know what it was, or where I was. Then I saw the same type of blue portal, but its middle was not white. It was black. And that confused me. Not daring to step forward on the field, I waited for someone to come. But no one did... And I decided to step into the black portal and I came back."
Harry stood there, not saying anything. Dumbledore bid him good-bye and left.
The gryffindor common room was noisy again. His fellow fifth years were not as noisy as the others, and Hermione stood up when Harry entered.
"Harry! Did you find anything?" she asked.
"More than you think!" he answered. He explained her and Ron about Fudge and Dumbledore. Then they talked for a long time. All the fifth years were now back to normal. It was still a mystery about the creator of the portal.
After lunch they went to Transfiguration. On their way, they met Cho and her friends. They were whispering things Harry could not hear. He saw that Cho was extremely sad. Harry tried to go closer to them to hear what they said. The only words that Harry caught were "Come on, Cho, you cannot bring him back to life. He is dead.", from one of her friends. Then they did not say anything else. When they started talking again, Ron interrupted Harry from listening.
"What's that?" he asked. He pointed to a red smoke in front of the transfiguration class.
"Looks like some smoke..." Hermione answered.
The source of the smoke was a red circle-shaped thing. Harry recognized it. It was a portal. The only time he had seen one was in one of his dreams about Voldemort. He knew that portals were not only for transporting people from one place to another. Some portals could have special powers. Some could give a person some extra energy to help him to cast spells with increased effect. Some had healing powers. There even were portals which could kill you if you got close.
Ron and Hermione stared at the portal still walking to the classroom. Harry stopped.
"Harry, what exactly is that thing?" Ron asked again.
"Stop." Harry told them. Then he thought for a moment. Ron and Hermione looked anxious to hear what he had to say; they surely figured out that Harry knew about them by the look on his face. "It is a portal..." said Harry.
"A portal?" Hermione asked before Harry could even finish the sentence. "I have heard about them..."
"I know exactly what they are. They can be created only with a very strong magic, but... No living person from our time has it... To do a portal you need a so strong magic that not even Dumbledore or Voldemort have. I have read that those strong wizards disappeared about three centuries ago."
"But..." Hermione said, "There must be a wizard with great powers if someone conjured it!"
Harry explained them what he read in "Ancient magic effects" about portals. Ron looked terrified when he told them they could kill. Hermione turned back and ran away.
"Where are you going?" Harry asked. "We are supposed to be in transfiguration!"
"To the library!" she answered and disappeared out of sight. It was unusual for Hermione to not go to a class. Harry and Ron did not move at all. Harry hoped it was not a killing one or a curse one, which could cast a random curse on someone.
Ten minutes passed. All the students who had to go to transfiguration stood near the place Harry and Ron were. Hermione hadn't returned from the library yet. No one said anything. All were waiting to see what happened next. The entire hallway was filled with red smoke.
They heard footsteps approaching. Someone was coming to them. Harry looked back. It was Dumbledore. He had a serious look; he did not look as he usually looked. He looked straight to the portal.
All the students were looking at him now. Harry figured out that Dumbledore was how he never saw him before: scared.
He got close to the portal and took his wand. Harry noticed that Dumbledore was muttering something. His wand pointed to the portal, and it created a jet of fire that hit the portal in the middle.
The portal changed color to a dark blue. The smoke changed, too. A small lightning exited from the portal and hit Dumbledore's wand. Dumbledore stepped back. The lightning stopped.
"Harry!" it was Hermione. "Oh..."
The portal doubled its size. And they could hear a cold voice saying something that Harry did not recognize. The cold voice was not Voldemort's. Dumbledore starting talking to the portal.
"Who are you?" he asked. He did not look scared anymore. "Talk to me!"
The portal turned back to the normal size. Dumbledore shouted: "Zappus!" and a bolt of electricity shot out of his wand. It hit the portal, which started to reflect it. Even that the bolts did not reach him, Harry felt as he was put under high voltage. He closed his eyes. After a few seconds, the sound caused by Dumbledore's lightning bolt and the portal reflecting it disappeared. Even the high voltage disappeared. Harry opened his eyes.
Dumbledore was nowhere in the hall. Everyone looked confused. The door to the transfiguration classroom opened and professor McGonagall appeared from it.
"What happened?" she asked immediately.
All the students started talking in the same time. No one heard anything except their own voice.
"SILENCE!!!" she shouted at them. The hallway went quiet. "Enter the classroom!"
All the students walked slowly to the classroom, where McGonagall was waiting for them on her seat. They all sit down, still very quiet. In the transfiguration lessons was usually quiet, but this time, it was even more. Every single student looked scared. Professor McGonagall did not say anything for a time, but then she decided it was better to speak.
"Tell me what exactly happened in the corridor", she said. None of the students were likely to say anything. Harry tried to speak twice, but he stopped after his own word. He had no idea how to describe the events. Then he was confident on himself and tried at last...
"It was a portal, professor. A red one was placed exactly in front of the entrance to the classroom." He paused after every two or three words, to think what to say next. "We waited for something to happen, and finally professor Dumbledore came... He shot some spells to it, he talked to it..." Harry stopped completely. He sit down. He had no words in his mind. He was thinking. Thinking about all the events that happened last time. First, Malfoy did not come to school. Second, a black metal door appeared, blocking his way to the bedroom. Then, a portal appeared in the school and that was the most surprising thing because there were no known wizards who could create one.
McGonagall was quite scared. She told them, "Class dismissed" and she got out of the room.
The other students stood up, and walked very slow to the gryffindor tower. None of them spoke. They had given the Fat Lady the password(StarCraft) and entered the tower. There was a complete quiet in the common room for several minutes. Then, Harry broke up the silence.
"What could make it?" he asked.
No one answered. He repeated the question, but with the same effect.
"Oh come on, you won't stay all the day without saying anything!!!" he said, not being scared anymore. In fact, he felt quite normal. He went to the library to see the book he where read about portals...
He ran on the corridors, Thankfully he did not meet Snape. He stepped into the library, where Madam Pince watched him to see what book he wanted. He knew what he was looking for - "Ancient magic effects". It took about ten minutes to find it. He took it and ran to the gryffindor common room. He told the fat lady the password and opened the book. It looked like no one spoken or moved all the time he was gone.
He threw the book on a table and sit on his chair. The book was already opened, and Harry turned to a page, and read silent about portals. Then, he felt something strange again...
The book had only a page about portals, and there were very few things explained. Harry knew about portals more than he read in the book. But how?
He had never seen one. The only time he saw about them was in this book, in the holiday he spent at Hogwarts. But he knew more things about portals than he read.
Everyone was quiet. Even Harry did not say anything. They stood there until some gryffindors second years entered the room. They looked quite confused. It was not a normal thing that the gryffindor fifth years stood quiet.
The second years did not seem interested about the situation. Then, Harry looked at a clock and saw that they stood there for a hour. He stood up and exited the common room. He was going to Dumbledore.
The time he reached the marble staircase that lead to Dumbledore's office looked like an hour. Then, he saw the gargoyle in front of the door.
Harry knew, or he thought he did, the password.
"Voldemort!" he said. The gargoyle moved from its place. The door to Dumbledore's office slid open. Dumbledore's office was empty. Harry looked in the room, and saw Fawkes, Dumbledore's phoenix. He looked quite cheerful. The last of their meeting was three months ago, when Harry told Dumbledore and Sirius what happened after he was transported to the graveyard where Voldemort re-came to power.
Harry stood there some time, and the door slid open. It was... none other than Cornelius Fudge, the minister of magic.
"Harry!" he said. "Hello".
"Good day!" he said.
"I apologize for not believing your stories in your third and fourth years." Harry felt relieved. He was scared of Fudge, but now he seemed normal... whatever meant normal for Fudge. "But i can not understand how could it happen?"
Harry stood quiet. He, in fact, wanted to speak to Dumbledore. But he wanted to ask a question, which he couldn't: why was Fudge here? Maybe he heard about the portal, but it was almost impossible. The portal appeared only an hour and a half ago.
"What are you doing here?" Fudge asked Harry.
"I need to speak -- with professor Dumbledore" Harry answered.
"Oh, yes, of course. By the way, thank you, I did not know the password."
Then, Harry understood why Dumbledore put that password. It was mainly because everyone feared saying the name, except a few people. And that made sure his office was protected.
He stood quiet, until Fudge started talking again.
"Was that true the fact that a door stopped you entering the bedroom?"
"Yes."
"It is a thing that no one could explain -- yet. We thought that it was created by you-know-who, but why would he do it with no purpose? So that theory went out. I am here to inspect the enchantments at this castle. It looks like something is wrong..."
Harry was reminded about the door. He said in a hurry "I have to go, Minister." and ran out of the office. He looked quite like Hermione; he went to the library again. He wanted to search for a spell that could create the door. Then a thought came in his mind. There were many spells that could create a door. But not many so strong to penetrate the Hogwarts' magical fields. Or was Fudge right when he said that something was wrong with it?
He reached the library. He asked Madam Pince, even thought he did not think he will receive any answer for such a question, if she knew what spells protected the castle. She reacted just as he thought.
"The spells? I cannot tell you that, and even I don't know all of them... The ministry and Dumbledore keep most of them a secret."
Harry wanted to find the spell that created the door. But he realized Fudge had to be right. There should have been a problem with the enchanting.
Walking up to the gryffindor tower, Harry met exactly the person he wanted to meet. Dumbledore. He had his wand out, and a small electrical bolt still shot out of it.
"Harry, I think there are very important matters to discuss", he said. "The portal is not a normal thing, not in our times." He was now as serious as possible. This was very important if Dumbledore was not "normal"(the way he was usually). "The only wizards capable of creating one have disappeared a very long time ago. There is no known wizard who can create one. But there is. We have no idea who. I think you were the one who saw the portal first?"
"No. It was Ron." said Harry.
"You were with him right?" Harry nodded. "You know about portals, don't you? I remember seeing you reading "Ancient magic effects"."
Harry's mind filled with a question. How did he know more about portals than he read?
He decided to ask that to Dumbledore. "How indeed... How indeed". He seemed he returned to his "normal". "Do you have any more questions, Harry?"
"Yes, one..." he answered. "What did you do with the portal?"
Dumbledore paused for a few seconds. Then, he started talking: "The only ways to find out what a portal does is to shoot a spell to it, or risk and go yourself. I tried a small fire to see what happens. It was obvious it was a teleportation one. I tried to shoot lightning to it, to see if it has extra powers. The lightning was reflected; I suppose the entire school felt the shock. Then I entered it, knowing that it was not dangerous. And I was transported to a large field. I did not know what it was, or where I was. Then I saw the same type of blue portal, but its middle was not white. It was black. And that confused me. Not daring to step forward on the field, I waited for someone to come. But no one did... And I decided to step into the black portal and I came back."
Harry stood there, not saying anything. Dumbledore bid him good-bye and left.
The gryffindor common room was noisy again. His fellow fifth years were not as noisy as the others, and Hermione stood up when Harry entered.
"Harry! Did you find anything?" she asked.
"More than you think!" he answered. He explained her and Ron about Fudge and Dumbledore. Then they talked for a long time. All the fifth years were now back to normal. It was still a mystery about the creator of the portal.