CHAPTER SIXTEEN : MAGE VIPERS
Harry carefully looked at the halls in the dungeon. Every hall was dark except of the ones near the entrance. The doors looked twice as many as they looked at the beginning... Harry had begun to think there was no hope...
But then he remembered - Chalcrad told him of a spell... and he had to try it, no matter what. Even if he didn't have any hope of concentrating in that situation... terrified and with almost no hope. His friends were nowhere to be seen... And he had to do the job alone. Alone, surrounded by hordes of monsters that wanted to defend the Orb.
He still had to try... or he would have died for it. His eyes closed slowly as he tried to concentrate, to bring any courage there was in his mind... But he didn't do anything. There was a sound that scared him... because every sound would do it in that situation...
But it was nothing to be afraid of. Harry closed his eyes again, because that made his concentration easier... He stood like that for a quite long time, without accomplishing anything...
Another sound, louder than before, made him stop and open his eyes. His face looked panicked, because he was sure what the sound was: it had to be another mage viper... Harry didn't think he was able to kill vipers anymore with the concentration he was able to acquire...
The sound was getting closer and closer... The viper started hissing in a very familiar voice. Harry could understand what it said beacuse he heard it in english. It continuously said something about the orb of the phoenix. Harry, scared as he was, wasn't attentive of what it said.
Harry started talking by instinct... He was asking the vipers what they will do to him. His mouth moved differently from what he was talking... He was speaking parseltongue again, as he didn't do for a long time... It seemed really weird.
The viper came out of a corner and stopped. It was looking with its fierce, white eyes at Harry. He started to feel somthing he had never felt before... He started to feel the magic inside the vipers. Erised once told him that magi feel the magic inside others if they want... That was how Harry felt now. Then the viper started talking to him.
"Heir of slytherin... Is that you?" it asked.
Harry stood dumb in the middle of the hall. The parselmouths were slytherins... except of him, who gained the power from Voldemort himself...
"You are not the heir of Salazar?" the viper asked again. It was giving a suspicious stare at Harry's scar. "You - you are Harry Potter!"
With that, the mage viper walked backwards.
"Don't be afraid of me," said Harry. "I am here with... er... good intentinos -"
"We are sure of that," said the viper, "you are trying to find a way to destroy the evil... but you won't. The Dark Side will always tryumph..."
Harry stood silenced. He knew that the viper was just waiting for the others of its kind to appear... They were planning to kill him. What hope was there after all? It was the end, Harry knew that... His death day would be the day when the Evil would tryumph...
"You think of us wrong..." said the viper. "Do not look at me like that! We are not here to kill you... We are just guarding the orb for the time when Voldemort will try to find it..."
"Then why did lots of vipers attack me before?"
"Remember... you are a pareseltongue. It took me a while to realize that you were not the Heir of Slytherin, and that you were the Heir of Gryffindor himself..."
"WHAT?" asked Harry surprised. "Me? The Heir of Gryffindor???"
"You didn't know... well I do not blame you... Because there are no wizards who know that... only the ancint creatures... and those are we."
"For how long do you live here?"
"Oh... It's been a long time, we are here for several thousands of years... We have always been trying to stop the Evil... And, we were succesful because the Orb is still here, even if there were many people who tried to steal it..."
"But how can I be the Heir of Gryffindor? I thought the only living Heir was Voldemort..."
"Oh, no! Never think about something that is impossible. You are the Heir of Gryffindor... And the heirs of Ravenclaw and Hufflepuf are still alive, even if no one knows it..."
Harry had no words to say - he was the Heir of Gryffindor... or was that only a mistake done by the vipers? It couldn't be... He heard that the vipers are always right...
Well they were not right when they thought Harry was the Heir of Slytherin, were they?
"It is just a pity that the Dark Arts are growing as strong as possible... They will soon be stronger than the mago-wizard spells themselves... and that will assure the victory of Evil... However, the Orb will always be safe in here... I'd specialize in Dark Arts myself but I can't risk falling to the Dark Side... It would be a shame for a creature like a Viper to be serving the Dark Side..."
Then, Harry could hear more vipers approaching. Their hiss was understandable...
"Tuz, I think you called us..." said one of the new-arrived vipers to the viper Hary was talking to.
"Yes, Ate. We will lead our new guest to the Undergrounds."
"Lead one human to our underground? It is not -"
"Shut up, Ate! He is Harry Potter, and we have to help him."
"Harry Potter? The Uncorruptible?" asked Ate. "This has to be a blessing from the Creator..."
"No, Ate. Not at all. The Dark Powers have been rising a lot this year. Harry Potter has come here only to find the Orb and use it against the Heir of Slytherin. And just think that he is uncorruptible... He can't turn to the Dark Side. He will be able to be an expert in the Dark Arts and he won't fall to the Dark Side!"
"So he will be the one who will assure the Light side a victory, won't he?" aksed Ate.
Tuz gave Ate a suspicious look. Harry stared at them at all the time. He certainly didn't like the sound of that - it sounded as if they wanted to use him for victory...
But that was the thing he wanted to do - to assure the defeat of Voldemort. Even if he was used by somebody...
"Gryffindor, follow us." said Tuz finally. They started moving, Harry followed tham as suit. "We will now show you something that no other human had ever seen, the Underground city we Vipers have been building for thousands of years, and the last thing we would ever show to somebody: The Orb of the Phoenix. Miraculously, it started burning for some time... I think it sensed the Evil Powers outside. Right at the exit of our tunnel is the Castle Of Eurazal, as you might know. Its leader was always a Dark Lord, very weak compared to Lord Voldemort, but we did not attack him because he could turn suspicious. The Powers of the Castle were weakened with the mysterious disappearance of the Necklace of the DragonTeeth."
"Oh..." said Harry, by mistake.
"What?" asked Tuz.
"The necklace..."
"What about it?... Wait a minute - I sense its powers..."
"What? Where?"
"Somewhere around... but I can't detect it, only its powers..."
"It is nothing to wonder of," said Harry, "It was used to resurrect me when I died."
"Ressurect? You?" asked Tuz very surprised. "You weren't meant to die... The Heir of Gryffindor can't die... That's what the Ancient Inscriptions on our castle say..."
"I died..."
"How exactly?"
"It was with the Avada Kedavra - If me or Voldemort tried it on the other, the caster would die... Both of us died trying a curse like that on the other one."
"Strange effect..." said Tuz while thinking of something. "But something predicted that somewhere... I don't know where... It doesn't much matter anyway. And by the way, the power of the necklace... It is in you, Gryffindor..."
"What? The powers?"
"No, no, no... The Necklace itself... You and the necklace are as one. It wasn't a living creature, but it had some very strong powers... and they are yours now to use... It is inside you. That is another rare effect... very rare, indeed..."
They had walked for a long time. Tuz lead Harry to one room, where he could see that the walls weren't yellow anymore; they were blue... In the middle of that room was a cross on the floor. Tuz pointed its small fingers to the cross looking at a group of vipers. They moved towards the cross. Tuz clapped once with its hands and the group that stood near the cross had turned a very bright white, emitting a blinding light. Harry couldn't see exactly what happened, but at the end the vipers were not there anymore. That had to be the apparition - or teleportatin, it deppends how someone looks at it - of the vipers.
Next, it was Harry's and Tuz's turn to stand on the cross.
"The teleportation is easy to do. Just stand here, near me." Tuz explained.
Harry did so. Tuz clapped once with its small thin hands. Harry could see himself turn white, as everything around him. The next moment all what he could see was black, a darkness that remembered him of his dream when he heard the two Death Eaters talked. Harry and Tuz were travelling, and Harry realized how they were moving - it was like being unable to touch anything. They passed through the floor, then through a thick ground. He could see the earth while moving, even in that darkness.
He closed his eyes because he couldn't keep them open. The next moment, he felt like falling from a huge distance. And he saw it - he had turned solid again and they were falling! Harry saw how the ceiling remained in a far away distance from them.
The cave was one of the most beautiful things Harry had ever seen. It was a huge cave, lit with a strange nuance of blue. Everything was blue; the walls, the ceiling, the ground, the wondrous buildings... even the vipers were like that.
They hit the ground. Mysteriously, they didn't have anything broken. Their speed was suddenly decreased when they were near the ground.
Instantly, hundreds of vipers started coming from everywhere, surrounding them. It was really creepy, Harry thought. The buildings around him were beautiful, but they were like freezing. Harry felt something evil in that. That blue color was very strange on the buildings that had many curbs. They had a very complicated arhitecture, with lots of circles and arcs. Their height was impressive, too.
The noise was getting louder. It increased with the number of vipers that came to that position in the town.
"TUZ!" some vipers shouted, "YOU KNOW THAT YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO BRING HUMANS HERE!"
"Shut up, Zel. It is an important business."
"Who is he anyway?" Zel asked pointing to Harry. "And those two who were brought here... Something is wrong, Tuz."
"I think you know him as Ejk."
"Ejk?" asked Zel. Every viper started talking.
"OH SHUT UP! ALL OF YOU!" said Tuz. "Yes, he is Ejk. Known by the humans as Harry Potter, the Heir of Gryffindor."
"And will you tell me who were the two you brought before?"
"They? I don't know but I suspect that they helped Ejk to get in here."
Harry stared at the vipers while they were talking. He was sure they usually talked alot. Were they talking about Ron and Hermione? He would find out soon.
Then there was a deafening sound that came from the ceiling. Someone was teleporting into the town. It was another Mage Viper.
"Tuz," the one who had just arrived said, "I found a mago-wizard. Left him there, not sure if he will do harm or not."
"He is a friend," Harry said, "Erised. He had helped me, too."
It was the first thing Harry said from the moment he entered into the magnificient cave.
"Ejk..." said Tuz to Harry, "I will lead you to the room where you will stay while you are here. It is not much, but there is nothing better I can give you. Follow!"
Harry did so. The Viper crowd split, and the place where they were before was empty again. Harry followed Tuz for about half an hour. They finally got there after what seemed an entire day, and Harry could see a building nicer than anything he had seen in the town.
"Ejk, you should NOT go out without one viper that knows you. Humans are not allowed here, and most of the vipers will try to kill you. I broke many rules by bringing you here."
Tuz almost left, but then he stopped. "Oh... And those... three we've met there... I suppose they are your friends."
"Yes, they are."
"They will be here in about one hour. Just sit and wait. Then we will talk more about the new threat Slytherin made us all fear! But do not panic, young Ejk. We will put an end to that sooner than you think... with the Orb of the Phoenix."
"But... Why didn't you ever use it before?" asked Harry.
"Because we, vipers, are cursed. The Orb does not accept us more than guards. If any viper gets close to it, he dies instantly, or just wakes up in terrible pain - it deppends of the viper. Some are weaker, some are stronger."
Tuz stood silenced for awhile, and after that he told Harry he had to do some work and left.
Harry was in a small bluish room. It had many strange objects inside. It rather looked as a technologically-advanced muggle world than a magic one, but it still was magical... built by vipers!
He didn't touch anything. He just started to think of what happened before. He thought of his adventures in the dungeons... Wasn't Tuz angry on him because he killed some vipers?
The hour passed slowly. Ron and Hermione finally entered the room, immediately followed by Tuz. Both of them were scared to their wits. It looked like they didn't figure out that the vipers were after all good...
"Ron! Hermione!" said Harry, while jumping to go near them. He gave both of them a you-are-okay hug. He felt really odd, he was used to speaking parseltongue... Not English.
"What is this town?" asked a scared Hermione.
"Calm down, calm down," Harry said, "Tuz... Why didn't you tell them about the situation?"
"Ejk... Remember that humans can't understand us. You have to be a parselmouth to understand us."
"Oh..." then, he turned to Hermione and Ron. "Calm down, Hermione. You, too, Ron. They are not evil creatures..."
"Then tell me why they captured us! And why they attacked us in the dungeon!" said Ron angrily.
"You know, while you were concentrating on a spell they came and took us from you... And you say they are not evil?"
"They are not. This town is what we had to visit from the beginning... the hiding place of the Orb of the Phoenix... so it wasn't in the dungeon after all."
Tuz interrupted them with another familiar hiss. "Well, Ejk... Just tell me what you want to see."
"Tuz, this is a very interesting town... I'd like to see it better, and I am sure my friends will, too."
"Fine. The town is very nice indeed... we have been working for about 4000 years to do it as you see it now. Come on!"
Harry then turned to Ron and Hermione, who didn't like the town at all. "Just follow Tuz... He will guide us through this beautiful town. I'd like to see it better... And then we will be able to see the orb!"
Ron and Hermione didn't say a word. They simply followed.
Tuz guided them through the town. He showed them the original entrance(when there was no teleportation), the statue of Captivity, which was built when the cave was captured by the spiders(but it was re-taken in a short time), the defending posts of the town, a museum, a supermarket(they didn't find any food for a human anyway) and Tuz's house. They saw almost the whole town, but that was in several hours.
It turned evening, then night. Tuz's slaves brought some food for the trio from the outside, and they went to the room that the vipers said it was Harry's. There already was someone inside. Tuz knocked the door. It was opened by none other than...
"Erised!" said Harry in a joyful voice.
"Hello, Harry. You have done great."
Erised's yellow eyes brightened. Tuz didn't seem to like that, he closed his eyes and exited the room.
"So," Erised started, "What are we going to do? The vipers don't like me, and I don't like them either."
"Well... I don't know," answered Harry, "I seem to be the only one who can talk to them... The only parselmouth in the group. Well, they are up to good things now, and I don't think they will ever turn evil - "
"Who said they will turn evil?" Ersied stopped him, "They are mage vipers, the symbol of the light side!"
"Symbol of the light side???" aksed Harry surprised.
"Oh... sorry, forgot you aren't familiarized with the magi... Yes, the magi have the vipers as the symbol of Good."
"Why didn't you tell us? We thought they were Evil from the start!" said Hermione and Harry together.
"Now," said Ron, "What's the plan?"
"We should go as soon as possible," said Erised, "Because they can't stay much with me around them... and I can't stay in their town either. Look at the buildings! They are horrible..."
Harry remained silent. He still considered the buildings the most beautiful buildings he had ever seen...
"Let's go," he decided at last.
"Harry, you are mad!" said Ron. "We have just entered the room! I am too tired for this!"
"Come with us... or stay here," said Harry. "Hermione?"
"As always... Ready." Ron seemed to blow up when he heard that Hermione wanted to go, too.
"Let's go!" said Erised finally. Ron swore.
"You know," said Harry, "Tuz told me not to go out without a viper accompanying me."
"Your wand is your best companion," said Erised. "And your mind..."
They walked out of the room, and then out of the building. The blue town was in front of them, there was no viper accompanying them... even if every one of them who saw the group got alarmed. The town could now be visited without a guide to tell you where to go. The only problem was that they didn't know where to go, the orb's location wasn't revealed yet.
"I guess the orb should be in one of those places," Erised briefed them, "The defending posts, the museum or Tuz's house. I can't imagine any other place where they could hide it. And it has to be one area where no viper goes, as the orb will instantly consume any viper that comes near it."
They decided to search the defending posts first, because that was the least thing a viper would visit. They weren't used for thousands of years, from the last attack of the Devil Goblins.
They found it easily aqd entered inside through a golden-blue gate. The defending posts were several towers, with spell-casting objects placed from place to place. It was a good defense, but Harry never thought that something like that was possible.
Fortunately, they haven't met any viper in the first visited tower. Everything they met were some worms, which grew there due to the fact that no one visited the tower for a long time. And that was all, the Orb of the Phoenix wasn't there. Ron seemed to fall to the ground, he was really tired. "Oh, Ron, you get tired that easily!" said Hermione. "Let's try something..."
She pulled out her wand and said, "Ennervate!". Even if that spell was meant to stop the unconsciousness of a person, it gave him some evergy. Ron wasn't as tired as before; he seemed to be normal again.
"Let's go!" he said, decided. He wasn't like that for a long time...
The second tower was the next one to be visited. The group stepped inside, it was larger and with a wonderful design. Even Erised's mouth opened when he saw the inside of the building... It had a high ceiling, and the painting made on it was done by a very skillful person - or viper. The design was not as a hi-tech one as before, it was now almost as Hogwarts's architecture. It was creepy as the first visited tower. Ron firstly hesitated to make another step, but then he continued(when he saw that everyone was walking inside).
They were walking slowly near the high columns that suspended the ceiling. But the second tower was empty as the first one, except for some Shock roaches that died when Erised looked at them(he used some fast spells).
"I think they would put the orb in the last tower so no one will look for it there," said Harry. "Come!"
They went to the last tower as Harry said. It was the best idea he had while in the Viper Cavern. "I don't like this..." said Ron with a very scared voice. And they hadn't found anything in that tower...
After a while, they realized the Orb was not in the defending post... It wasn't in the museum either, and they thought that Tuz would never do anything like hiding a viper-killing object in his house. They had no more ideas of where to go.
"Where d'you think it can be?" asked Ron.
"I think they had hidden it in the ground somewhere, and we need Tuz to reach the Orb's location..." said Harry.
"No... It has to be in the temple!" said Erised. "How could I ignore the temple??? The Mage Viper Temple... Some ancient stories were talking about it. I even read somewhere about the Orb of the Phoenix, but I am not sure if it was in the temple. Maybe it had just made the connection between the same location: in the Viper Cave. Who knows... We'll have to continue our search. There is no other alternative, because I am sure the vipers won't tell us where the orb is."
Erised led them to the Viper Temple, which was in the other side of the town. It was something wrong with the vipers, though. No one attacked them, or maybe they were briefed by Tuz on that, and they were told not to be scared of the group?
At the temple entrance was a guardian viper waiting...
"Who are you?" it asked in a hiss that only Harry could understand.
"I am Harry Potter, er..." He couldn't remember the name he had in the viper town.
"And who is Harry Potter? I never heard of you... And the others?" But they didn't answer him, they couldn't understand him.
"I am the only parselmouth here," said Harry. "I am the Heir of Gryffindor!"
"Ejk..." said the guard slowly. "I am not allowed to let you in the temple."
Harry turned to Erised and told him "He sais we are not allowed in there... What should I do?" Erised started thinking. His yellow eyes brightened and started shining. The guardian Viper looked at him suspiciously.
"What does he do?" the viper asked.
"It's nothing... Just preparing an anti-viper ray," he said joking. But it wasn't the good moment to joke, the viper jumped onto Erised and pushed him to the ground. "I was just kidding!"
"NOW WAS IT A JOKE OR NOT?" asked the viper angrily.
"I don't know..." said Harry, and that was the real thing... He wasn't familiar with the mage spells. "I think it was nothing bad for you, though."
"Ask him!" the viper said pointing to Erised.
"Erised," said Harry, "what was that?"
"Harry, that was a spell done with the energy I gathered from the Orb of the Phoenix... It would have consumed the guard... And it is true! The orb must be insine the temple! That's why we are not allowed here. That's why I could feel and use its energy and magic."
The viper was looking at them with an evil look on its face. Its white, evil eyes looked as piercing through Harry's mind. But that was just his imagination.
"What?" the viper asked. "Tell me what he said!"
Harry stood silenced. Should he tell the viper what Erised just said? No, it would surely kill them for that. He said, "No... He was just looking for the Orb of the Phoenix. It was a search spell."
"You must not take the Orb!" it said, "It is only safe in this cave, from all places in the world. I repeat, it - must - not - be - taken. Just listen to me... Or else, the Dark Ones will take it and terrorize the world with it. Please! I don't want the evil to rule the world, and I am sure you don't want that either."
"Then tell me how are you gonna kill them all?" asked Harry decided to argue until he was allowed to take the Orb, even if there was no chance that the vipers would give it that easily. "This Orb is the only way to defeat them! We must use it in order to stop them!"
"I am sure you won't be able to do that, because the dark powers are so strong that they will take the orb from your hands! And if you will use it here, the entire population of vipers will die. No... Just... Let it here and leave without it. There are other ways to stop a dark wizard..."
"And those are?"
But the viper didn't say anyhting. It looked as it wanted to say something but someone blocked it. That person was Erised. He was using another spell that paralysed the viper.
"Erised!" said Harry angry.
"Harry, this is the lonly way to enter and take the orb..."
"I was gathering information about the orb's powers! How do you know that it won't kill us, too?"
"You can be sure that it won't."
"I still had something to talk to the guard..." said Harry while the viper fell to the ground. Erised pointed his finger to it and its body exploded in hundreds of pieces. "ERISED! You go too far!"
"No, not at all, Harry. We must find the orb, remember? To save the world..." Harry didn't like that at all. He started to hate Erised... what was in his mind? he was talking only stupid things.
But if they started it, they had to keep the work to the end. They entered inside the temple. It looked as an ancient building, with sandy walls that stood in the air because of the strong magic in the temple. It looked as a pyramid, not as a temple.
The temple had a very large and long hall, with columns near the walls that were just as decorations, because the ceiling stood up because of the magic casted on it.
And at the end of the huge hall was something that emitted a very strong red light... It was the Orb of the Phoenix. Near it was a human being dressed in a black cloak... It couldn't be... How would anyone find out about the cave? It was so unreal...
"Is that... You-know-who?" asked Hermione.
"He can't be..." said Harry.
But it was nothing to think - that had to be Voldemort... who else? They wlked towards the Orb and the person. It was really dangerous - they still didn't know if the Orb could do more than just removing something that didn't belong to body from its insides. Could it kill? Could it make a fire wall that separated the caster form the others? Or could Voldemort just disapparate from that spot and go to his Drumstrang castle?
Harry just wished that he wouldn't rest in pieces and acquired as much courage as he could, because it had to be another fight with Voldemort... and Harry was sick of them. He had enough for a lifetime.
But was that Voldemort? He didn't move at all... that hooded figure was different from Voldemort in many ways... Voldemort couldn't just stay and wait... He always was the first who spoke, or stroke.
Then, a white light appeared in front of him. After a few seconds, the long body of Tuz materialized and started to walk to them.
"I knew it all along... I knew that you would try to find the orb. And you did a nice job to the guard, Erised... Oh you can't understand."
"I'll translate..." said Harry, then looked at Erised. "he said you did a nice job to the guard..."
"Well, you are in the temple, The Mage Viper Temple! You stand right in front of the Orb of the Phoenix, near me... near the only viper strong enough to deflect its powers and use them against anyone else... And because you aren't trustworthy, I think you can imagine what will happen to you... Just translate to them, Ejk... I want them to know why they died."
Harry told them what Tuz said, and started to make a plan.
"Erised, you just try to take the orb's energies and use them to kill Tuz... Because he seems decided; he wants to kill us all. I don't really like this, but it must be done. I'll talk to him, distracting him... Just do your job, Erised... Show no mercy as you did to the guard!"
"And," Tuz continued, "I saw that you were fooled by the cloak I bewitched to stay in midair... Look, it is no one inside..." tuz took the cloak from that position. It was, really, an empty cloak... It fooled them. Harry felt a kind of stupid.
But, he could see Tuz's small, thin hands go red... It was time for Erised to strike.
But Harry didn't see all of it, the red light from Tuz's hands merged into a red beam of light that hit him in his chest. That wasn't a pleasure at all. Pain started rushing through his body, he felt almost as bad as the times when he was hit by a Cruciatus...
But it wasn't that bad... He still prefered this instead of being hit by Crucio.
Harry could notice the red light everywhere... The Orb's powers were very strong, Harry could feel them... Some of its energy entered in his body. He could feel it.
From that moment, he closed his eyes, and the last thing he saw was Erised, and he looked stranger than usual, his entire body was colored in red and yellow.
He heard lots of hisses that he translated as pain screams(or hisses), the results of the orb's powers being used, and it was used by a viper, not a human... And he fell unconscious due to the pain and lack of energy left in his body, all of it was consumed by the Orb of the Phoenix.
Harry carefully looked at the halls in the dungeon. Every hall was dark except of the ones near the entrance. The doors looked twice as many as they looked at the beginning... Harry had begun to think there was no hope...
But then he remembered - Chalcrad told him of a spell... and he had to try it, no matter what. Even if he didn't have any hope of concentrating in that situation... terrified and with almost no hope. His friends were nowhere to be seen... And he had to do the job alone. Alone, surrounded by hordes of monsters that wanted to defend the Orb.
He still had to try... or he would have died for it. His eyes closed slowly as he tried to concentrate, to bring any courage there was in his mind... But he didn't do anything. There was a sound that scared him... because every sound would do it in that situation...
But it was nothing to be afraid of. Harry closed his eyes again, because that made his concentration easier... He stood like that for a quite long time, without accomplishing anything...
Another sound, louder than before, made him stop and open his eyes. His face looked panicked, because he was sure what the sound was: it had to be another mage viper... Harry didn't think he was able to kill vipers anymore with the concentration he was able to acquire...
The sound was getting closer and closer... The viper started hissing in a very familiar voice. Harry could understand what it said beacuse he heard it in english. It continuously said something about the orb of the phoenix. Harry, scared as he was, wasn't attentive of what it said.
Harry started talking by instinct... He was asking the vipers what they will do to him. His mouth moved differently from what he was talking... He was speaking parseltongue again, as he didn't do for a long time... It seemed really weird.
The viper came out of a corner and stopped. It was looking with its fierce, white eyes at Harry. He started to feel somthing he had never felt before... He started to feel the magic inside the vipers. Erised once told him that magi feel the magic inside others if they want... That was how Harry felt now. Then the viper started talking to him.
"Heir of slytherin... Is that you?" it asked.
Harry stood dumb in the middle of the hall. The parselmouths were slytherins... except of him, who gained the power from Voldemort himself...
"You are not the heir of Salazar?" the viper asked again. It was giving a suspicious stare at Harry's scar. "You - you are Harry Potter!"
With that, the mage viper walked backwards.
"Don't be afraid of me," said Harry. "I am here with... er... good intentinos -"
"We are sure of that," said the viper, "you are trying to find a way to destroy the evil... but you won't. The Dark Side will always tryumph..."
Harry stood silenced. He knew that the viper was just waiting for the others of its kind to appear... They were planning to kill him. What hope was there after all? It was the end, Harry knew that... His death day would be the day when the Evil would tryumph...
"You think of us wrong..." said the viper. "Do not look at me like that! We are not here to kill you... We are just guarding the orb for the time when Voldemort will try to find it..."
"Then why did lots of vipers attack me before?"
"Remember... you are a pareseltongue. It took me a while to realize that you were not the Heir of Slytherin, and that you were the Heir of Gryffindor himself..."
"WHAT?" asked Harry surprised. "Me? The Heir of Gryffindor???"
"You didn't know... well I do not blame you... Because there are no wizards who know that... only the ancint creatures... and those are we."
"For how long do you live here?"
"Oh... It's been a long time, we are here for several thousands of years... We have always been trying to stop the Evil... And, we were succesful because the Orb is still here, even if there were many people who tried to steal it..."
"But how can I be the Heir of Gryffindor? I thought the only living Heir was Voldemort..."
"Oh, no! Never think about something that is impossible. You are the Heir of Gryffindor... And the heirs of Ravenclaw and Hufflepuf are still alive, even if no one knows it..."
Harry had no words to say - he was the Heir of Gryffindor... or was that only a mistake done by the vipers? It couldn't be... He heard that the vipers are always right...
Well they were not right when they thought Harry was the Heir of Slytherin, were they?
"It is just a pity that the Dark Arts are growing as strong as possible... They will soon be stronger than the mago-wizard spells themselves... and that will assure the victory of Evil... However, the Orb will always be safe in here... I'd specialize in Dark Arts myself but I can't risk falling to the Dark Side... It would be a shame for a creature like a Viper to be serving the Dark Side..."
Then, Harry could hear more vipers approaching. Their hiss was understandable...
"Tuz, I think you called us..." said one of the new-arrived vipers to the viper Hary was talking to.
"Yes, Ate. We will lead our new guest to the Undergrounds."
"Lead one human to our underground? It is not -"
"Shut up, Ate! He is Harry Potter, and we have to help him."
"Harry Potter? The Uncorruptible?" asked Ate. "This has to be a blessing from the Creator..."
"No, Ate. Not at all. The Dark Powers have been rising a lot this year. Harry Potter has come here only to find the Orb and use it against the Heir of Slytherin. And just think that he is uncorruptible... He can't turn to the Dark Side. He will be able to be an expert in the Dark Arts and he won't fall to the Dark Side!"
"So he will be the one who will assure the Light side a victory, won't he?" aksed Ate.
Tuz gave Ate a suspicious look. Harry stared at them at all the time. He certainly didn't like the sound of that - it sounded as if they wanted to use him for victory...
But that was the thing he wanted to do - to assure the defeat of Voldemort. Even if he was used by somebody...
"Gryffindor, follow us." said Tuz finally. They started moving, Harry followed tham as suit. "We will now show you something that no other human had ever seen, the Underground city we Vipers have been building for thousands of years, and the last thing we would ever show to somebody: The Orb of the Phoenix. Miraculously, it started burning for some time... I think it sensed the Evil Powers outside. Right at the exit of our tunnel is the Castle Of Eurazal, as you might know. Its leader was always a Dark Lord, very weak compared to Lord Voldemort, but we did not attack him because he could turn suspicious. The Powers of the Castle were weakened with the mysterious disappearance of the Necklace of the DragonTeeth."
"Oh..." said Harry, by mistake.
"What?" asked Tuz.
"The necklace..."
"What about it?... Wait a minute - I sense its powers..."
"What? Where?"
"Somewhere around... but I can't detect it, only its powers..."
"It is nothing to wonder of," said Harry, "It was used to resurrect me when I died."
"Ressurect? You?" asked Tuz very surprised. "You weren't meant to die... The Heir of Gryffindor can't die... That's what the Ancient Inscriptions on our castle say..."
"I died..."
"How exactly?"
"It was with the Avada Kedavra - If me or Voldemort tried it on the other, the caster would die... Both of us died trying a curse like that on the other one."
"Strange effect..." said Tuz while thinking of something. "But something predicted that somewhere... I don't know where... It doesn't much matter anyway. And by the way, the power of the necklace... It is in you, Gryffindor..."
"What? The powers?"
"No, no, no... The Necklace itself... You and the necklace are as one. It wasn't a living creature, but it had some very strong powers... and they are yours now to use... It is inside you. That is another rare effect... very rare, indeed..."
They had walked for a long time. Tuz lead Harry to one room, where he could see that the walls weren't yellow anymore; they were blue... In the middle of that room was a cross on the floor. Tuz pointed its small fingers to the cross looking at a group of vipers. They moved towards the cross. Tuz clapped once with its hands and the group that stood near the cross had turned a very bright white, emitting a blinding light. Harry couldn't see exactly what happened, but at the end the vipers were not there anymore. That had to be the apparition - or teleportatin, it deppends how someone looks at it - of the vipers.
Next, it was Harry's and Tuz's turn to stand on the cross.
"The teleportation is easy to do. Just stand here, near me." Tuz explained.
Harry did so. Tuz clapped once with its small thin hands. Harry could see himself turn white, as everything around him. The next moment all what he could see was black, a darkness that remembered him of his dream when he heard the two Death Eaters talked. Harry and Tuz were travelling, and Harry realized how they were moving - it was like being unable to touch anything. They passed through the floor, then through a thick ground. He could see the earth while moving, even in that darkness.
He closed his eyes because he couldn't keep them open. The next moment, he felt like falling from a huge distance. And he saw it - he had turned solid again and they were falling! Harry saw how the ceiling remained in a far away distance from them.
The cave was one of the most beautiful things Harry had ever seen. It was a huge cave, lit with a strange nuance of blue. Everything was blue; the walls, the ceiling, the ground, the wondrous buildings... even the vipers were like that.
They hit the ground. Mysteriously, they didn't have anything broken. Their speed was suddenly decreased when they were near the ground.
Instantly, hundreds of vipers started coming from everywhere, surrounding them. It was really creepy, Harry thought. The buildings around him were beautiful, but they were like freezing. Harry felt something evil in that. That blue color was very strange on the buildings that had many curbs. They had a very complicated arhitecture, with lots of circles and arcs. Their height was impressive, too.
The noise was getting louder. It increased with the number of vipers that came to that position in the town.
"TUZ!" some vipers shouted, "YOU KNOW THAT YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO BRING HUMANS HERE!"
"Shut up, Zel. It is an important business."
"Who is he anyway?" Zel asked pointing to Harry. "And those two who were brought here... Something is wrong, Tuz."
"I think you know him as Ejk."
"Ejk?" asked Zel. Every viper started talking.
"OH SHUT UP! ALL OF YOU!" said Tuz. "Yes, he is Ejk. Known by the humans as Harry Potter, the Heir of Gryffindor."
"And will you tell me who were the two you brought before?"
"They? I don't know but I suspect that they helped Ejk to get in here."
Harry stared at the vipers while they were talking. He was sure they usually talked alot. Were they talking about Ron and Hermione? He would find out soon.
Then there was a deafening sound that came from the ceiling. Someone was teleporting into the town. It was another Mage Viper.
"Tuz," the one who had just arrived said, "I found a mago-wizard. Left him there, not sure if he will do harm or not."
"He is a friend," Harry said, "Erised. He had helped me, too."
It was the first thing Harry said from the moment he entered into the magnificient cave.
"Ejk..." said Tuz to Harry, "I will lead you to the room where you will stay while you are here. It is not much, but there is nothing better I can give you. Follow!"
Harry did so. The Viper crowd split, and the place where they were before was empty again. Harry followed Tuz for about half an hour. They finally got there after what seemed an entire day, and Harry could see a building nicer than anything he had seen in the town.
"Ejk, you should NOT go out without one viper that knows you. Humans are not allowed here, and most of the vipers will try to kill you. I broke many rules by bringing you here."
Tuz almost left, but then he stopped. "Oh... And those... three we've met there... I suppose they are your friends."
"Yes, they are."
"They will be here in about one hour. Just sit and wait. Then we will talk more about the new threat Slytherin made us all fear! But do not panic, young Ejk. We will put an end to that sooner than you think... with the Orb of the Phoenix."
"But... Why didn't you ever use it before?" asked Harry.
"Because we, vipers, are cursed. The Orb does not accept us more than guards. If any viper gets close to it, he dies instantly, or just wakes up in terrible pain - it deppends of the viper. Some are weaker, some are stronger."
Tuz stood silenced for awhile, and after that he told Harry he had to do some work and left.
Harry was in a small bluish room. It had many strange objects inside. It rather looked as a technologically-advanced muggle world than a magic one, but it still was magical... built by vipers!
He didn't touch anything. He just started to think of what happened before. He thought of his adventures in the dungeons... Wasn't Tuz angry on him because he killed some vipers?
The hour passed slowly. Ron and Hermione finally entered the room, immediately followed by Tuz. Both of them were scared to their wits. It looked like they didn't figure out that the vipers were after all good...
"Ron! Hermione!" said Harry, while jumping to go near them. He gave both of them a you-are-okay hug. He felt really odd, he was used to speaking parseltongue... Not English.
"What is this town?" asked a scared Hermione.
"Calm down, calm down," Harry said, "Tuz... Why didn't you tell them about the situation?"
"Ejk... Remember that humans can't understand us. You have to be a parselmouth to understand us."
"Oh..." then, he turned to Hermione and Ron. "Calm down, Hermione. You, too, Ron. They are not evil creatures..."
"Then tell me why they captured us! And why they attacked us in the dungeon!" said Ron angrily.
"You know, while you were concentrating on a spell they came and took us from you... And you say they are not evil?"
"They are not. This town is what we had to visit from the beginning... the hiding place of the Orb of the Phoenix... so it wasn't in the dungeon after all."
Tuz interrupted them with another familiar hiss. "Well, Ejk... Just tell me what you want to see."
"Tuz, this is a very interesting town... I'd like to see it better, and I am sure my friends will, too."
"Fine. The town is very nice indeed... we have been working for about 4000 years to do it as you see it now. Come on!"
Harry then turned to Ron and Hermione, who didn't like the town at all. "Just follow Tuz... He will guide us through this beautiful town. I'd like to see it better... And then we will be able to see the orb!"
Ron and Hermione didn't say a word. They simply followed.
Tuz guided them through the town. He showed them the original entrance(when there was no teleportation), the statue of Captivity, which was built when the cave was captured by the spiders(but it was re-taken in a short time), the defending posts of the town, a museum, a supermarket(they didn't find any food for a human anyway) and Tuz's house. They saw almost the whole town, but that was in several hours.
It turned evening, then night. Tuz's slaves brought some food for the trio from the outside, and they went to the room that the vipers said it was Harry's. There already was someone inside. Tuz knocked the door. It was opened by none other than...
"Erised!" said Harry in a joyful voice.
"Hello, Harry. You have done great."
Erised's yellow eyes brightened. Tuz didn't seem to like that, he closed his eyes and exited the room.
"So," Erised started, "What are we going to do? The vipers don't like me, and I don't like them either."
"Well... I don't know," answered Harry, "I seem to be the only one who can talk to them... The only parselmouth in the group. Well, they are up to good things now, and I don't think they will ever turn evil - "
"Who said they will turn evil?" Ersied stopped him, "They are mage vipers, the symbol of the light side!"
"Symbol of the light side???" aksed Harry surprised.
"Oh... sorry, forgot you aren't familiarized with the magi... Yes, the magi have the vipers as the symbol of Good."
"Why didn't you tell us? We thought they were Evil from the start!" said Hermione and Harry together.
"Now," said Ron, "What's the plan?"
"We should go as soon as possible," said Erised, "Because they can't stay much with me around them... and I can't stay in their town either. Look at the buildings! They are horrible..."
Harry remained silent. He still considered the buildings the most beautiful buildings he had ever seen...
"Let's go," he decided at last.
"Harry, you are mad!" said Ron. "We have just entered the room! I am too tired for this!"
"Come with us... or stay here," said Harry. "Hermione?"
"As always... Ready." Ron seemed to blow up when he heard that Hermione wanted to go, too.
"Let's go!" said Erised finally. Ron swore.
"You know," said Harry, "Tuz told me not to go out without a viper accompanying me."
"Your wand is your best companion," said Erised. "And your mind..."
They walked out of the room, and then out of the building. The blue town was in front of them, there was no viper accompanying them... even if every one of them who saw the group got alarmed. The town could now be visited without a guide to tell you where to go. The only problem was that they didn't know where to go, the orb's location wasn't revealed yet.
"I guess the orb should be in one of those places," Erised briefed them, "The defending posts, the museum or Tuz's house. I can't imagine any other place where they could hide it. And it has to be one area where no viper goes, as the orb will instantly consume any viper that comes near it."
They decided to search the defending posts first, because that was the least thing a viper would visit. They weren't used for thousands of years, from the last attack of the Devil Goblins.
They found it easily aqd entered inside through a golden-blue gate. The defending posts were several towers, with spell-casting objects placed from place to place. It was a good defense, but Harry never thought that something like that was possible.
Fortunately, they haven't met any viper in the first visited tower. Everything they met were some worms, which grew there due to the fact that no one visited the tower for a long time. And that was all, the Orb of the Phoenix wasn't there. Ron seemed to fall to the ground, he was really tired. "Oh, Ron, you get tired that easily!" said Hermione. "Let's try something..."
She pulled out her wand and said, "Ennervate!". Even if that spell was meant to stop the unconsciousness of a person, it gave him some evergy. Ron wasn't as tired as before; he seemed to be normal again.
"Let's go!" he said, decided. He wasn't like that for a long time...
The second tower was the next one to be visited. The group stepped inside, it was larger and with a wonderful design. Even Erised's mouth opened when he saw the inside of the building... It had a high ceiling, and the painting made on it was done by a very skillful person - or viper. The design was not as a hi-tech one as before, it was now almost as Hogwarts's architecture. It was creepy as the first visited tower. Ron firstly hesitated to make another step, but then he continued(when he saw that everyone was walking inside).
They were walking slowly near the high columns that suspended the ceiling. But the second tower was empty as the first one, except for some Shock roaches that died when Erised looked at them(he used some fast spells).
"I think they would put the orb in the last tower so no one will look for it there," said Harry. "Come!"
They went to the last tower as Harry said. It was the best idea he had while in the Viper Cavern. "I don't like this..." said Ron with a very scared voice. And they hadn't found anything in that tower...
After a while, they realized the Orb was not in the defending post... It wasn't in the museum either, and they thought that Tuz would never do anything like hiding a viper-killing object in his house. They had no more ideas of where to go.
"Where d'you think it can be?" asked Ron.
"I think they had hidden it in the ground somewhere, and we need Tuz to reach the Orb's location..." said Harry.
"No... It has to be in the temple!" said Erised. "How could I ignore the temple??? The Mage Viper Temple... Some ancient stories were talking about it. I even read somewhere about the Orb of the Phoenix, but I am not sure if it was in the temple. Maybe it had just made the connection between the same location: in the Viper Cave. Who knows... We'll have to continue our search. There is no other alternative, because I am sure the vipers won't tell us where the orb is."
Erised led them to the Viper Temple, which was in the other side of the town. It was something wrong with the vipers, though. No one attacked them, or maybe they were briefed by Tuz on that, and they were told not to be scared of the group?
At the temple entrance was a guardian viper waiting...
"Who are you?" it asked in a hiss that only Harry could understand.
"I am Harry Potter, er..." He couldn't remember the name he had in the viper town.
"And who is Harry Potter? I never heard of you... And the others?" But they didn't answer him, they couldn't understand him.
"I am the only parselmouth here," said Harry. "I am the Heir of Gryffindor!"
"Ejk..." said the guard slowly. "I am not allowed to let you in the temple."
Harry turned to Erised and told him "He sais we are not allowed in there... What should I do?" Erised started thinking. His yellow eyes brightened and started shining. The guardian Viper looked at him suspiciously.
"What does he do?" the viper asked.
"It's nothing... Just preparing an anti-viper ray," he said joking. But it wasn't the good moment to joke, the viper jumped onto Erised and pushed him to the ground. "I was just kidding!"
"NOW WAS IT A JOKE OR NOT?" asked the viper angrily.
"I don't know..." said Harry, and that was the real thing... He wasn't familiar with the mage spells. "I think it was nothing bad for you, though."
"Ask him!" the viper said pointing to Erised.
"Erised," said Harry, "what was that?"
"Harry, that was a spell done with the energy I gathered from the Orb of the Phoenix... It would have consumed the guard... And it is true! The orb must be insine the temple! That's why we are not allowed here. That's why I could feel and use its energy and magic."
The viper was looking at them with an evil look on its face. Its white, evil eyes looked as piercing through Harry's mind. But that was just his imagination.
"What?" the viper asked. "Tell me what he said!"
Harry stood silenced. Should he tell the viper what Erised just said? No, it would surely kill them for that. He said, "No... He was just looking for the Orb of the Phoenix. It was a search spell."
"You must not take the Orb!" it said, "It is only safe in this cave, from all places in the world. I repeat, it - must - not - be - taken. Just listen to me... Or else, the Dark Ones will take it and terrorize the world with it. Please! I don't want the evil to rule the world, and I am sure you don't want that either."
"Then tell me how are you gonna kill them all?" asked Harry decided to argue until he was allowed to take the Orb, even if there was no chance that the vipers would give it that easily. "This Orb is the only way to defeat them! We must use it in order to stop them!"
"I am sure you won't be able to do that, because the dark powers are so strong that they will take the orb from your hands! And if you will use it here, the entire population of vipers will die. No... Just... Let it here and leave without it. There are other ways to stop a dark wizard..."
"And those are?"
But the viper didn't say anyhting. It looked as it wanted to say something but someone blocked it. That person was Erised. He was using another spell that paralysed the viper.
"Erised!" said Harry angry.
"Harry, this is the lonly way to enter and take the orb..."
"I was gathering information about the orb's powers! How do you know that it won't kill us, too?"
"You can be sure that it won't."
"I still had something to talk to the guard..." said Harry while the viper fell to the ground. Erised pointed his finger to it and its body exploded in hundreds of pieces. "ERISED! You go too far!"
"No, not at all, Harry. We must find the orb, remember? To save the world..." Harry didn't like that at all. He started to hate Erised... what was in his mind? he was talking only stupid things.
But if they started it, they had to keep the work to the end. They entered inside the temple. It looked as an ancient building, with sandy walls that stood in the air because of the strong magic in the temple. It looked as a pyramid, not as a temple.
The temple had a very large and long hall, with columns near the walls that were just as decorations, because the ceiling stood up because of the magic casted on it.
And at the end of the huge hall was something that emitted a very strong red light... It was the Orb of the Phoenix. Near it was a human being dressed in a black cloak... It couldn't be... How would anyone find out about the cave? It was so unreal...
"Is that... You-know-who?" asked Hermione.
"He can't be..." said Harry.
But it was nothing to think - that had to be Voldemort... who else? They wlked towards the Orb and the person. It was really dangerous - they still didn't know if the Orb could do more than just removing something that didn't belong to body from its insides. Could it kill? Could it make a fire wall that separated the caster form the others? Or could Voldemort just disapparate from that spot and go to his Drumstrang castle?
Harry just wished that he wouldn't rest in pieces and acquired as much courage as he could, because it had to be another fight with Voldemort... and Harry was sick of them. He had enough for a lifetime.
But was that Voldemort? He didn't move at all... that hooded figure was different from Voldemort in many ways... Voldemort couldn't just stay and wait... He always was the first who spoke, or stroke.
Then, a white light appeared in front of him. After a few seconds, the long body of Tuz materialized and started to walk to them.
"I knew it all along... I knew that you would try to find the orb. And you did a nice job to the guard, Erised... Oh you can't understand."
"I'll translate..." said Harry, then looked at Erised. "he said you did a nice job to the guard..."
"Well, you are in the temple, The Mage Viper Temple! You stand right in front of the Orb of the Phoenix, near me... near the only viper strong enough to deflect its powers and use them against anyone else... And because you aren't trustworthy, I think you can imagine what will happen to you... Just translate to them, Ejk... I want them to know why they died."
Harry told them what Tuz said, and started to make a plan.
"Erised, you just try to take the orb's energies and use them to kill Tuz... Because he seems decided; he wants to kill us all. I don't really like this, but it must be done. I'll talk to him, distracting him... Just do your job, Erised... Show no mercy as you did to the guard!"
"And," Tuz continued, "I saw that you were fooled by the cloak I bewitched to stay in midair... Look, it is no one inside..." tuz took the cloak from that position. It was, really, an empty cloak... It fooled them. Harry felt a kind of stupid.
But, he could see Tuz's small, thin hands go red... It was time for Erised to strike.
But Harry didn't see all of it, the red light from Tuz's hands merged into a red beam of light that hit him in his chest. That wasn't a pleasure at all. Pain started rushing through his body, he felt almost as bad as the times when he was hit by a Cruciatus...
But it wasn't that bad... He still prefered this instead of being hit by Crucio.
Harry could notice the red light everywhere... The Orb's powers were very strong, Harry could feel them... Some of its energy entered in his body. He could feel it.
From that moment, he closed his eyes, and the last thing he saw was Erised, and he looked stranger than usual, his entire body was colored in red and yellow.
He heard lots of hisses that he translated as pain screams(or hisses), the results of the orb's powers being used, and it was used by a viper, not a human... And he fell unconscious due to the pain and lack of energy left in his body, all of it was consumed by the Orb of the Phoenix.