Black and White
By Kenaz Astaroth
Rating: R, for graphic calculated torture, dark themes, and disillusionment.
Disclaimer: Anything and Everything that you recognise from JK Rowling's Harry Potter Series is not mine. It is hers, obviously. However, everything else is mine (or if it is someone else's, I am not consciously plagiarising or imitating).
Author's Notes: I got my files back! **hops up and down giddily, much like she has been doing for the last hour** I'm sooo happy!!! **stops suddenly** You are all under a geas to ignore my completely un-Slytherin behaviour. And if that doesn't work, then I'll start in with the death-threats. **glares menacingly**
Also, I know that nobody commented on this, but if Tom is OOC, don't kill me alright? There is a very good reason.
Oh yeah, another torture warning for scene one of this chapter.
Chapter 2
In Dreams, part two
"I'm sorry," said Harry softly, standing in the same forest as before, with Tom's back turned towards him. Tom turned around and nodded curtly.
"Is there anything else that I need to see?" asked Harry, though he hoped desperately that the answer was no.
"There's more, but I don't think that you're ready to see it," replied Tom, looking directly at Harry with a cold expression that Harry had not seen on him before. Harry looked at him questioningly. "You need to go back to the Phoenix Labs."
Harry shuddered, but looked at Tom determinedly. Tom studied him for a moment, then nodded and held out his hand.
They walked along in uncomfortable silence, broken only by the sound of their footsteps and their breathing.
"I'm not taking you to see the prisoners, but in order to get where we're going, we have to pass through here." He looked at Harry, worry showing in his face. "I noticed that you couldn't control yourself around Triana.
"Triana? Is that the girl's name?" asked Harry. Tom nodded, smiling slightly for the first time that evening.
"That's what she told us. You managed to transport her directly to my home, though Merlin knows how you managed to do that. I haven't been able to get much out of her besides her name though. She asks for you quite often." Tom sobered and went back to his previous explanation, "This room," he gestured to the doorway behind him, "holds people who are even worse off than Triana was. If you can't control your magic, it will get away from you as it did last week, only with this number of people you could be drained to the point of death."
Harry blanched and looked at the door in renewed fear of what it held. He took a deep breath, gritted his teeth, and looked Tom directly in the eyes. Tom nodded solemnly, and walked through the door. Harry followed, bracing himself for the horrors it undoubtedly held.
They entered into a long hallway. Harry noticed immediately that there was a sound of rain, and the drops fell onto his skin, but they were still indoors. Then he noticed the contents of the hallway, and he felt that no matter how prepared he had thought he was, it obviously wasn't enough.
On one side of the hallway stretched a long row of manacles, set high enough on the wall that anyone hanging from them would have their feet hand well above the floor.
On the other side of the hall, stretched a row of wooden beds. Once again, the victims were splayed across the beds, but these were not tied. No, tying would have been a blessing. Instead, huge nails, one centimetre in diameter at the narrowest point, were shoved brutally through their hands and feet, as well as attaching their pelvis and shoulders to the board. This was hardly the complete list of what had been done to those on the beds. Some looked like they had been in an iron maiden before they had been pinned like huge grotesque butterflies to the torture beds. Others were skinned as Triana had been. A few had had their fingers and toes chopped off, still more had had their bodies sliced across and downwards, so that there was a precise-looking grid made of their cuts. They were all awake and screaming loudly, or in some cases their screaming sounded like Triana's had. All except one.
That one had his eyes closed and his expression was controlled and poised in his unconsciousness. His torture was distinctive, far more so than the others in that it did not seem to have been done with the same cold precision as the others. Bruises littered the boy's body from head to toe, but were overshadowed by the sheer amount of blood that seeped from his body. Harry hadn't really noted it before, but all of the other victims, despite their wounds, didn't bleed. This boy had been seemingly sliced haphazardly, and if Harry had been familiar with that type of wound he would have said that the boy had been flogged mercilessly.
Harry noted all of this in the space of a moment, before he fell to the ground, feeling as though his body was being pulled in all directions at once. There was a soundless explosion from within him and he collapsed into someone's arms, breathing hard and feeling utterly exhausted.
When he finally got enough strength back to open his eyes, the first thing he noticed was that every one of the prisoners was gone, except the boy. The second thing he noticed, was that Tom was not the one holding him.
"Here," said a hauntingly familiar voice from behind him as he was helped into a sitting position against the wall. He turned towards the voice and found himself eye to eye with the tired but happy face of Ron Weasley.
"Ron?" asked Harry uncertainly, unable to summon the strength to even be surprised, settling for a weak uncertainty and puzzlement.
"Yeah, it's me."
"But how- when-"
Ron sighed a leaned back against the wall, allowing Harry to lean against him. "I fell," he said, referring to the phenomenon that occurred when you failed the illusion test, "just after you rescued Ginny from the Chamber of Secrets. I suppose that you're still attending Hogwarts?"
Harry nodded, "I'm only now having things explained to me."
Ron nodded, "That explains why you're here in dreamform."
Something dawned on Harry, "Are you?" Ron looked at him in confusion, "In dreamform, I mean." Ron nodded and Harry paled, his gaze going to the still form of the boy still lying on the bed. Ron followed his line of sight and nodded.
"Yeah, that's me. I heard somewhere that your body can't be affected by magic while your soul is in dreamscape. I guess this is proof that it's true."
Harry was sorely confused, and not hiding it well.
Tom smiled slightly, "I think that it's time for you to wake up, Harry. Between mine and Ron's magic, I should be able to transport him out of this place, since you've already healed and unbound him. I'll show you tomorrow night."
There was the customary flash of light and Harry woke up, only to go back into a dreamless sleep to regain some of his strength.
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
"Ron wants to see you. He asked me to tell you that he'd turn up at your house as soon as he was allowed."
"When will that be?"
"Whenever you master a certain three charms."
"What charms?"
"One that will disguise your magical signature so that the Order doesn't know that you are running around in the real wizarding community. A second that will give you a slightly different appearance and will hide that damned scar of yours. The third is one that will create a duplicate of your body, right down to the magical signature, that you'll leave here so that no one knows that you're missing."
"Alright, that sounds simple enough."
"You also have to be proficient enough with them that you can cast them all at the exact same time, wandless."
Harry sighed, "This is going to take a long time, isn't it."
Tom grinned, "No, not if you practice as much as I'm going to make you. Now, here's your wand," he pulled Harry's wand out of thin air, "and let's get started!"
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
A week later, Harry had finally mastered the charms wandless, but he was having quite a bit of trouble performing them simultaneously. Tom had taken his wand away after his first three attempts at the charms themselves, which had been a week before, and forced Harry to attempt the enchantments wandless. Harry had caught on to that fairly quickly, which Tom had pronounced "remarkable!" Of course, it was no good until Harry could cast the three spells all at once, and right now he was having trouble just casting them in a fairly quick succession.
"Almost got it," said Tom cheerfully, as Harry cast the first two charms but fumbled with the last one enough that it only went into effect nearly a minute later.
Harry grumbled under his breath. This was frustrating! He had spent a week getting to this point and it still wasn't good enough.
An hour later he managed it and slumped back against a tree, grinning widely.
"I did it!"
Tom grinned, "It usually takes a few months to get the hang of it."
"WHAT?! Five minutes ago you were going on and on about how I was taking sooo much longer than everyone else you taught did!" Tom chuckled.
"Yes, but would you have worked nearly so hard if I had told you that it was going to take a few months?"
Harry muttered something that sounded suspiciously like 'sneaky bastard,' which only served to make Tom laugh harder.
"Alright, Ron will be over in…" Tom flickered out of view for a moment before reappearing, "three days. Are you up to visiting the Labs again tomorrow?"
Harry nodded, "See you tomorrow night."
Harry woke himself up, the customary flash of light flashed once and he was in his bed.
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
"Why is it raining in here?" asked Harry, holding out a hand and watching as the moisture went straight through it. They were once again in the hallway, this time walking straight through. The Order seemed to either not have any prisoners to refill the room with, or they just hadn't noticed. Harry didn't think that the latter was completely out of the question. The Labs were huge and according to Tom, no one had ever escaped before so they probably wouldn't be on the watch for it.
"From what Ron told me, that was their only water ration. Food came in small portions once a day, if the Order members deemed the prisoners to have been behaved that day." Tom looked disgusted and Harry's face mirrored his expression.
"Why do I lose control of my magic like I did before?" asked Harry, changing the subject abruptly.
"Most people lose control of their magic when they're in dreamform," said Tom. "Usually, the more powerful you are the harder it is for you to control. I've never seen anyone affect the physical world anywhere near as much as you do, though."
Tom was silent for a moment before he went on, "Not a lot is known about True Dreaming and dreamform. It's something that was just recently discovered by… one of my close friends. We know it's hard to control magic while in dreamform, and that whatever you see is what is actually happening at that very moment. You can do just about anything that you want to, but only the most powerful wizards' actions have an effect on the real world." It's also possible to change your appearance here, but you don't need to know that yet, continued Tom silently.
"How was it discovered?" Harry asked curiously.
"My friend is really interested in the muggle concept of magic. There are some muggle religious groups that practice things like visualisation, astral projection, meditation.... Then there are these odd rituals that some of them do. A lot of times they use primitive tools like fire, chanting, and such things. Pe- my friend was interested in what would happen if a real wizard or witch practiced something like that. True Dreaming is what he discovered when he tried Astral Projection."
Harry looked at him blankly. Astral projection? Meditation? Visualization? Tom chuckled when he saw Harry's confusion.
"Astral projection is pretty much what we're doing now. Your soul, or astral form as muggles call it, is completely disconnected from your body. Meditation is similar, only you're supposed to explore your subconscious rather than the real world. Visualization is just the idea that if you imagine something happening, it's more likely to really happen. Or at least, that's what I understand about it. My friend would probably give you more accurate information."
Harry blinked, "Oh."
At this point they had reached the end of the hallway. They walked through the door and came out in a brightly-lit, cheerfully decorated hallway that contrasted so sharply from the one they had just been in that Harry did a classic double-take, checking to make sure that the previous hallway did in fact exist. Tom just kept walking.
"This is where the lowest ranking Order members' offices are. It'll take a good while before we reach the upper levels."
They passed through very ornate rooms. The desks and tables were made from solid planks of dark wood, polished till it reflected nearly as well as any mirror. The chairs, and even couches, were upholstered in plush, dark velvet and the cushions looked soft enough to swallow a person whole. The walls were painted white, but hidden behind tropical plants and the silk curtains that sectioned off seemingly random areas of the room. All in all, the place looked like it had cost a fortune, and these were for the lowest ranking members!
Harry stiffened, outraged that the same people who tortured children would indulge themselves so extravagantly, only a single wall separating them from their victims.
"Calm down, Harry," came Tom's stern voice, breaking Harry out of his thoughts. Harry took a deep breath, nodding curtly and they continued on.
They passed a room where a dozen house-elves were sleeping, along with several of what appeared to be human slaves. All of them, humans and elves alike, were wearing the same thing. From the way it looked, they were wearing a sheet that had had a hole cut into the exact centre. Their heads went through the hole and the result was belted with a long piece of twine at their waist. The human slaves looked emaciated, and had bruised littering their bodies, though they showed no evidence of other injuries. The elves probably were underfed, but elven bodies didn't show malnutrition the way human bodies did. The elves looked like they punished themselves to extremes that not even Dobby had reached, and then some. Harry had a feeling that his magic would have gotten out of hand again, had he had enough left. He still hadn't recovered from the night before and felt like even a simple levitating charm would be too much for him.
Harry shuddered, watching a slave-boy stumble into the room, nudge another slave, then collapse on a pile of rags that apparently served them as beds. The slave that had been nudged, and Harry couldn't tell whether it was a male or female, immediately got up and trudged out one of the doors leading out of the room. Tom sighed and pulled Harry further down the hall.
They passed more "offices" and slave-rooms before eventually coming to an exceedingly large, ornately carved door. The door was washed with gold, emphasising the intricate and tiny details of the pattern that covered it. Harry could see, among the carved vines, flowers, animals, and victorious troops leering over their fallen enemies, Latin words and even what appeared to be poetry etched into the gold-washed wood. Of course, it was all in Latin so he had very little idea as to what it said.
Tom walked through the door silently and Harry followed, only to gape in utter incomprehension and shock at the room before him.
The enormous room looked a bit like a forest at first glance, and a carefully cultivated garden at second. On third, it appeared as though one had fell into a truly obscure jeweller's shop.
A pathway, made of solid silver, wound its way through the room. Trees circled the perimeter, having solid (which Harry ascertained by tapping on one of them) bronze trunks and precisely cut leaves made of flawless emeralds, which were never less than a hand-span wide, and double that in length.
Inside that outer boundary, silver willows with coin-sized ruby leaves were scattered about the room, swaying in an imaginary breeze, joined by birch trees made of diamonds and emeralds, and pine trees composed of onyx trunks and branches, with yet more emeralds for the needles.
Throughout this quasi-forest made of precious gems were scattered animals, made from less precious materials, all of them animate despite the hard substances that they were made of. A garnet fox, a mother-of-pearl stag, an aquamarine tropical bird, a pack of wolves made of quartz, and a snake made of amethyst, picked out in details down to the individual hair, feather, or scale.
The desk that sat at the middle of the room appeared to have been carved out of a single tree trunk, rather than having been composed of several pieces. The appearance would have been absolutely convincing, had the desk not been solid gold (though it must have been only a layer of gold over a harder surface, or magically enhanced, since gold by itself wouldn't be able to hold up under any sort of practical use. Other than that, the illusion was perfect, down to the grain patterns in the "wood"). Ivy made of rose gold climbed the sides of the desk, though not a leaf touched the top of it. The chair was a similar masterpiece.
Harry stood stock still, slowly overcoming his surprise as his mind flitted back to the forms of the emaciated slaves and abused elves, to the tortured victims who had lain on wooden beds with stakes shoved through their extremities to keep them from moving, to the form of a tortured girl whose only crime had been a want of food, and lastly, to the image of his best friend, beaten and starved for however long he had been in this place.
Every single thing in the entire room shattered at once, and Harry's eyes glowed a bright green in his anger as he called up a reserve of magical power that he hadn't thought he possessed. Everything shattered, that is, except three animals, made of mother-of-pearl, quartz, and amethyst, respectively, and the silver and gold, which vanished into thin air.
There was a bright flash of light and Harry found himself awake, in his bed, in his room at Number 4. He yawned a smiled absently at the three-foot-tall mother-of-pearl stag that stood just beside his bed. He went back into a dreamless sleep, sighing contentedly as the stag, surprisingly warm and soft for having been made of such materials, cuddled up against him and settled its head at Harry's feet.
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Replies to Reviewers:
hyalite- **grin** Matrix? **blinks, surveys story** You know, it hadn't occurred to me, but, yeah… it is sort of similar.
Caspian- **grins widely** Definitely one of my better summaries. Thanks. It's really not above the R rating, I know. But it was three in the morning so… yeah. David Eddings? Nope. Probably should though. Maybe I could learn something… **evil grin** I'm rather interested as well, especially since I haven't quite figured it out yet ^_^. Thanks!
Riley Cat- I really should stop posting at three in the morning… I put up a repost without the overblown warnings… Anyway, thanks. Here's chapter two, but chapter three might take a while.
BabyPufoo- **grin** I'm glad you liked it. Here's more, and I'm sorry for the delay.
mali- ^_^ Thank you!
Crystal Illusion- Yup Tom=Good… er, sorta. You'll see what I mean either chapter three or four. Order of the Phoenix is definitely evil, or at least the commanding officers are. Brothers? Drunk? Running around in boxers? **envisions her brother doing the same and shudders** Poor you! Here's more (finally).
vashunglasses- Thank you, and I will try.
madwoman- Thank you! Erm, Tom is sorta- **cuts off because she just came dangerously close to revealing the major plot-point of the next two chapters** Er, yeah. You'll see
npetrenko- Thank you, and I plan to anonymous- **blinks** **grins** Really? Thank you! Er, this isn't exactly soon, but the next chapter should be up in a couple days.
Kimdalia- I'm wondering what you meant by original **looks suspicious** and I'm not sure whether it's supposed to be a compliment or not…. The entire wizarding world wasn't a complete lie, but most of the parts that really affect Harry were invented by the Order. Harry was created by Order members, and the details come out later. He wasn't supposed to be so much a member, but as a perfect solution to all their problems. There already is a revolution, it just lacks supplies, power, people, er, everything really…. What they end up doing is a secret, because I don't want to give away the plot (and I don't entirely know yet). The torture scene was awful to write, though that was mostly due to the fact that it was about three in the morning and I wasn't terribly lucid at the time… (I should really stop posting new stories in the middle of the night…). Oh, you like ITFOTT and MtaD too? It's nice when people like more than one of my stories. Continuing!
Fiera- Thank you. It's a change of pace from my other stories (MtaD and ITFOTT are just variations on a previously used idea. It was nice to do something different.
Ariana Deralte- The Giver? **looks over story** Huh? **doesn't see it** The idea for this to all be some delusion of Harry's did strike me, but I'm not going to say whether or not it's going to happen yet. The Slyth!Dumbledore bunny… is rather underdeveloped. If you want to preread the first chapter for me (not beta, just read it over and tell me what you think), if I ever finish it, then that'd be fine. My email is akriel_astaroth@yahoo.com if you're interested.