Author's Note: Hello everyone! I'm in an oddly good mood tonight (August 24), and guess what, I have almost no clue what I'm going to write in this chapter, only the vaguest idea whatsoever!!! You know what that means? It means I can't do any chapter bashing! Not at least until my Post-A/N! Yay!!! Everyone's happy! Now, this will definitely be one of those chapters that comes completely drives itself, so if it takes the most extremely odd turn, hey (!) I warned you! That cleared up, onward ho! On to Chapter Six!
Chapter Six
The Cimeriian Mysteries
Harry Potter woke up the next morning completely unaware of his surroundings. He strained his mind, attempting to find some thought, some recollection of the space in the middle of darkness that he was sitting in, of who he was, of when he was, and of what had just happened… But alas, nothing, absolutely NOTHING… He gulped slightly, feeling a lump rise in his stomach, the organ turning over slightly, his blood boiling with a start as he felt the adrenaline rush speedily through him, flooding his body. His heart was pounding in his rib cage, and the thump, thump was so loud he almost started. Surely, surely he couldn't be in just the middle of nowhere, and surely his loudly beating heart would give him away, which, when coupled with the heavy sound of his breathing, told him that whoever was out there would find him… Realizing this, Harry closed his mouth, if he couldn't control his quickly-pounding heart, he could at least silence the sound of respiration, but this too, failed, for often, when one is conscious of one's breathing, and tries to quiet it by sealing one's oral cavity, one finds that one can not breathe at all… Thus, almost completely blue in the face, he released the pressure and allowed the Carbon Dioxide to escape, trying to make sense out of the empty blackness that surrounded him.
The ebony blanket that consumed him was so thick and so real that he seemed to be as good as floating in a vacuum in space: he pressed his finger onto the tip of his nose, and although he felt its presence, he could see nothing but the empty, black space. Harry wasn't by any means claustrophobic (how else could he have spent his childhood in a cupboard?) but suddenly he found himself completely unable to take in any oxygen at all. He was suffocating…
Panic flooding his every nerve, he knew that he had to get out of wherever he was, to find some kind of light, but it didn't seem that there was anything but black anywhere, at least anywhere even remotely within his reach… He wondered, with a thrill of foreboding, if he had some how ventured into Intermundia in his dreams and gotten lost on the way back, if he had gotten stuck between planes of existence. Mind jumping around frantically, attempting to calm himself, he reasoned that his only way out of this was to feel his way across his surroundings, and, swallowing, thinking about just what he might run into in the dark, he inched slowly to his left. Quite suddenly, he felt the bottom drop out of half of him, and he jumped, running briefly into something on his way flying away from the edge.
Unfortunately however, he was more than just a bit over-enthusiastic in his frantic leap to the right, and he was to pay for his lack of consideration… It had just never occurred to him that whatever he was sitting on might have ended not to far from him on the right side as well… Suddenly realizing that there was now nothing to support his weight but the empty air around him, he grabbed fiercely onto a sort of velvety sheet that he ran into headlong.
The force of this sent him whirling, still clutching onto the hanging sheet, his body circled around into the opposite direction at supersonic speed, so fast that the wind seem to howl around him, and he didn't even have the time to realize that he was no longer surrounded by an infinite, never-ending stream of blackness. With a horrific bang his legs slammed into a huge hardwood something with the painful force of a bullet. His sudden halt in clockwise rotation sent his torso whirring in the opposite direction, tearing the sheet from his grasp. This, however, was brief, as the back of his head collided sickeningly straight on with a horridly solid, hardwood post. Finally falling, a sensation that seemed to last an eternity, he sank onto a very familiar carpeted floor…
Clutching the back of his head in the searing, cold-rush-of-blood pain, he closed his eyes for only a moment. When he opened them, he felt a sudden rush of feeling sweep over him… Infinite stupidity. Groaning slightly to himself, he found himself facing a fallen scarlet hanging, and looking up: his bed. How could he have been such a moron? Of course it had been his bed he had woken up in, where else would he have been?… But then… How had he gotten there? Why had it been so dark? It had all seemed so very frighteningly real.
Although he had figured out where he was and who he was, he still had no idea what had happened. He couldn't believe how abysmally stupidly he had behaved just a few minutes ago, and he hung his head, eyes closed, in shame, shame over his momentary panic, his acting like (what he felt to be) a little child. Rubbing the back of his head in pain, he felt a sick swoop of nausea overcome him as the vomit rising in his throat fell through his esophagus, and threatened to return to his oral cavity. His whole body aching, sweating, and feeling as though every inch of his skin was on fire, shaking slightly, he wondered vaguely whether or not he was going to be violently ill; he certainly felt like it…
And then it happened…
It seemed that the recollection of his identity, the recognition of his surroundings, they were accompanied most unfortunately by the realization of just how much pain he was in… It hit him like a wave of freezing ocean water. It started (who could have guessed anything else?) in his scar, as these things always had. Splitting open with white-hot flames, it erupted into dark convulsions of sheer agony. Spreading like wildfire across his flesh, the pain rotted away at his skin, and he felt the familiar sharp, horrific, miserable, demonic pain of poison: of the poisoned blades of Intermundia. Harry knew that there was absolutely nothing else there, but his vision blurred as he felt them skate violently across his body. Releasing the horrific and violent groan that was pushing its way out of his vocal cords, he heard another strangled cry, and the pain disappeared just as quickly and easily as it had come, leaving nothing but an achy sort of residue. He cast his mind about, trying desperately to recall the events of the previous night…
He remembered coming back to the Common Room late at night with Ron and Hermione. He remembered finding a party there, had it been for him? He remembered accepting a drink from someone… And then, nothing at all. His memory seemed to fade into blackness as though someone was slowly turning off the lights, and found the sound suddenly muted out.
His head spinning dizzily, he looked up to see who had cried out, and found himself staring into the face of his best friend, Ron Weasley. The look of horror on his comrade's visage was so evident, Harry would've sworn that his face was crawling with Aragog-sized acromantulas. Bewildered beyond belief, he watched as his friend dove behind the bed and emerged a split second later, wand at the ready. "Ron, what the bloody hell are you doing?" Harry almost screamed in a painfully harsh and violent manner that was very unlike him (but then again, he had been in a lot of pain).
Ron's dark blue eyes widened disbelievingly, "Harry? Is that really you? I thought… Oh God… What…" He didn't seem to be able to speak in full sentences, indeed, he seemed to be having a whole lot of trouble stringing just two words together.
"Of course it's me," he snapped impatiently, "who else would it be?" He breathed deeply and felt some sort of peace slowly descend onto him, like a bright white fog in the dead of night. This calm however, did not last quite as long as he might have hoped as he was hit by a sudden realization… Springing up onto his feet, he ran to a mirror, and, purely out of shock, he felt his heart skip a beat and cold horror spread throughout his bloodstream like a disease… And when he saw his reflection in that thin pane of glass, he screamed.
~**~_~**~_~**~
His mouth twitched into a lipless, manic smile. "Ah, Cimerii…It is done?"
The pupils behind the mask glittered, and a voice spoke from beneath the costume, a voice so muffled and so deep and so unreal that it seemed almost completely and utterly inhuman. "It is done my Lord. The first stage has been completed. The girl is in much distress, and will find herself closer to you with every moment, from the very second she awakes. It is a certainty."
The Dark Lord's blood-red eyes sparkled sickeningly, the look of pleasure on his face so horrific that any innocent bystander might have found themselves rather violently ill, and probably looking their morning's breakfast in the face. It was a look of bloodshed and black magic; of terror and chills; of war and death; of darkness and emptiness; of all the terrible attrocious things in this world and the next: it was the look of true evil. His bright snow-white skin shone in the moonlight, glimmering in the darkness like a star or even a bicycle-reflector, like the sudden, flashing reflection of color that appears in the eyes of a dog in darkness, the sort that often terrifies small children into hysterics, mistaking their affectionate family pet for a miserable monster.
The servant, Cimerii, or whoever it was, didn't even flinch as it watched its master, hungry for power and for pain, but started with a despairing and horrified jump and jerk when Voldemort, starving for suffering, called out to it "You're doing very well, Petranni. If you continue your faithful service, I will have your daughter before the end of the year."
Quite obviously, the servant did not take quite kindly to being called by the name it had once been given, and did not like being reminded of its daughter. Shaking with an unidentifiable emotion, the servant turned on its heel and vanished.
Voldemort smiled to himself, there was no torture quite like it: not even the Cruciatus curse pained his servant so much as the calling of its family name.
~**~_~**~_~**~
Ron was horrified beyond all doubt, beyond belief, more horrified than he had ever been in his entire life, as he looked into his friend's mangled face, ridden with green scars… And as if this weren't bad enough, Harry had a humungous black bruise on his left cheek, almost taking up an entire side of his face. It wasn't the fact that Harry had a fist-sized black-and-blue, but it was the shape that the bruise took that was so unnerving… It was the Dark Mark.
Ron was more confused than he had ever been before as he watched warily as Harry ran his fingers distractedly through his hair in the semi-darkness of approaching dawn, muttering to himself something that sounded quite suspiciously like "Oh God, it's back. They're back."
Harry's pupils sharpened with concentration and it seemed that he was calling in all his reserves, straining his mind beyond belief. Ron shuddered as he never thought he could, gagging involuntarily as he looked into the disfigured face of his best friend.
He looked mad. Eyes widening, he grabbed Ron by the shoulders and shook him violently, insanity in his every expression. "What happened last night?!!!! WHAT HAPPENED?… and why can't I remember anything?" The way his voice so abruptly changed tone from that of violence and rage to that of softness and almost gentle sorrow was chilling to the bone.
Looking around to ensure that the other three Fifth Year Gryffindor boys were sound asleep in their beds, he motioned for Harry to follow him down the stairs and into the Common Room. Ron took the lead eagerly, afraid that someone might have overheard them in the dormitory, that they had woken someone who didn't want to be acknowledged, and besides, he would take whatever excuse he could to get out of looking Harry in the face.
They settled themselves down onto two cozy armchairs near the fireplace and Harry began to recount all that he could remember of the previous day. "Well, I remember everything up until the middle of Lunch," he started, expression blank with acceptance, "when Angelina came up…. And I think…. Did I start a food fight? Anyway, I remember you two dragging me off to find Alina Petranni, and then, we saw her in the Common Room, and, and, and…" Harry's horrible face contorted even more terribly as he paled and strained his mind in concentration, "Nothing… it's all dark, all I can remember is this dark sort of anger and, I think I said something to her, dunno what, and she acted all weird on us… Then we went to the library, and we had an argument about whether or not she's related to Dumbledore, we went back, and we had Defense Against the Dark Arts… I remember coming back to the Common Room really late, and there was a party… Hang on, was it about the food fight?… Yeah, 'The Great Food Feud of Ninety Five' they were calling it, then Fred and George handed us a drink… Nothing, it's all black." Quite suddenly, Harry's voice took on an incredibly skeptical, extremely disbelieving tone, "Ron, how many butterbeers did I have?"
He swallowed, wishing to God that Harry had alluded to the truth: that it had been as simple as that, but it wasn't, by God it wasn't. "None."
"What?… But then what…"
"Harry come on," Ron said, with a trace of irritation in his voice. It wasn't that he was in any way angry with Harry, he was just frustrated that his friend could be so stupid as to even suggest something of that nature, because Harry would never, ever… Well, it didn't matter now, he reasoned, a slight tinge of jealousy in his voice at the fact that he had once again managed to put himself in the spotlight, even if it was a horrible spotlight to be in, even if it ended like this… Everything happened to Harry. Everything happened to famous Harry Potter. Forcing himself to think straight, forcing himself to push back the sudden stab of despair and loneliness that streamed across his spirit, he continued. "Don't be such a stupid git. You tried to give the bottle back to Fred and George, having a party just in your honor really seemed to have put you out about it." 'Though if it had been me…' Ron's mind started, before he stopped himself once more. "Then she came in and ruined everything." He added, bitterly.
"Who?" his friend asked, although it seemed as though he already knew.
"Alina Petranni," he said with a bitter bite of spite in his voice. "She came down from the girls' staircase to see what was going on, at least that's her story… Anyway, she came down, and then you saw her and you lost it completely. You started…" he searched for the words hesitantly, not wanting to say what he inevitably had to say "twitching. You were twitching and shaking and spitting and well, it looked like you were having a seizure. Then you challenged her to a duel or something and started saying all sorts of horrible things about her and about everyone and everything. Harry, you sounded like You-Know-Who." Ron gulped, recalling how frightening his friend had become, how everyone had backed away from he and Alina, leaving a wide, terrified circle of people. He remembered ever so clearly the stench of fear that had stagnated the air.
His friend's voice shook very slightly, "What did I say?"
Ron blocked it out of his mind with of cold stab of terror. "I don't want to think about it. Trust me, it was some of the worst things I've ever heard. It was like she had enchanted you into You-Know-Who. Then, you started talking in Parseltongue, but she seemed really calm… Too calm… Then, I don't know what you said but it made her very angry and she started hissing back at you in Parseltongue, then something happened and she, she looked at you."
If they had been talking about anyone else other than Alina Petranni, this would have been a very feeble statement indeed, however, such was not the case, and they both knew instantly what that meant.
"The look she gave you was even worse than the one she gave Snape, it was the most horrible thing I've ever seen in my life, and as she's looking at you, that Dark Mark bruise comes up, and she laughs this horrible laugh, and then… I don't know what happened because there was this huge flash of light, green light, but I reckon she did something because she was gone… You started twitching again, and then you fell, and it was like you were in a trance or something, you got up, went up to bed, and you must have conked out after you got changed because you were asleep as soon as I came up after you."
It was evident from the look of pure shock and terror on his friend's face that Harry had no idea what to make of this.
Ron, on the other hand, sat, wearing a Hermione-esque expression, looking pensive. "I'm seeing a pattern here." He looked over cautiously at Harry.
"What?"
"Petranni," he said simply, his tone like that of one speaking of a escaped flesh-eating slug, every time your memory blacks out and you started acting strangely, she was there, and you saw her… What does that tell you, eh? I told you she was dangerous, but no, you wouldn't listen. I ---…"
Harry cut him off "Ron!!! Just… You're not helping," he exclaimed in a very frustrated voice.
"Whatever, but the fact remains, it's that girl, she's doing some kind of dark magic or something… And I'll tell you something else, I'd bet you anything she put the Dark Mark on your face, she was looking right at it like she meant it to be there, and then she laughed at it!"
He tried to discern the expression on his friend's face, but it was impossible. Sighing resignedly to himself, he sank back into his armchair, and watched, transfixed, as the rising sunlight poured in through the windows, streaming across the room, and as it spread over Harry's face, the scars disappeared completely, and the Dark Mark vanished, as though it had never been there in the first place…
~**~_~**~_~**~
Alina took great care to see that no one was watching her as she pulled her invisibility cloak over her head. Carefully stepping out of the shadows, she hurried across the grounds, feeling her dark red hair flap against her back like a flag as she ran. Her head swinging in all directions, almost paranoid that someone else might be there, she stepped into the twisted trees of the Forbidden Forrest. She had never been here before, but somehow she knew exactly where she was going, as though from a former life, or perhaps from the calling of fate.
Her strides were long and quick as she twisted off the path and wove around the thick trees, heading directly into the green-black darkness, the rising sun and color-starched sky behind her. After at least a good half-an-hour she paused quite suddenly, purely on whim. She just had a feeling… He was here.
She whistled a birdcall softly, the signal she had practiced and removed the cloak warily. Hearing the call returned from the tree above, she gave a sigh, half-exasperated, half-relieved. She heard a soft, deep voice whisper "Wingardium Leviosa," and she rose slowly into the sky until an invisible hand reached out and pulled her into the branches. One hand on her back, one grasping her arm, the invisible man lead her through the twisting branches until she was facing the trunk of the tree, and whispered "Alohomora."
The bark opened up a great hole in the trunk, the blackness seemed to swirl like a horizontal portal, and something quickly snatched her and sucked her in like a magnet or a vacuum. She was quite surprised to see however, stepping inside the tree (or being pulled in, depending on how you looked at it), that instead of the inside of tree trunk, before her stood the entrance to a cave. The man pulled off his invisibility cloak and allowed her to see his familiar face: the dark, dark deep brown hair: usually so soft, clean, shining, slick, and well-oiled, and now slightly disheveled and more than a bit unkempt; the angled face with its sharp chin and high-cheekbones; the naturally-tanned skin, worry-lines stretching around his eeyes and mouth where there had been none before, and the eyes the color of dark chocolate, usually so cold, as though a stone wall stood just behind the iris, now hinting at something warmer, almost like fire. It was the face of Demetrius Petranni.
"You sent for me, Father?"
~**~_~**~_~**~
A/N: Woah, that was totally (!!!!!!) unexpected. I hope iv given u something to think abt…. What the heck is going on w/Harry's scars/memory blackouts/sudden strange behavior he cant rememeber? Whats goin on w/ cimerii/petranni? What abt Alina and her father? Y did he send for her? Y is the cave inside of a tree? ….. and any other questions from other ch's.
Fay: I made u feel awful?!!!! YES!!!! ::jumps for joy:: sry, that was very insensitive wasn't it? ::evil grin:: but it means I did something rite. Yes people have gone thru that sort of thing, in fact, where do u think I got the idea for these struggles? Myself. Yes I have gone thru horrible personal battles, and well, still am. Ok, so not everything she deals w/I did too, but quite a lot, Alina is a pseudo-version of my darker side (ok so im not a stuck up upper class grl, etc, etc) but yes, I have gone thru a lot of painful internal struggles – havent written in "m I really a shallow monster incapable of human love/feeling?" yet have I, that's one of the more horrible ones Iv dealt w/ - and am still dealing w/and I look forward to givin her that prob. Its like therapy or something, being able to write out some of ur problems and not having to worry how people will c u and feel all awkward abt it. Yes, so I really luv Alina b/c of this ::grabs her out of the story and gives her a big hug:: - yeah I feel really bad for her too – even I havent had it this bad, I just want to crawl into the story and ,make everything alright, but I cant do that and b a responsible author! Feel free to grab Alina out of the story anytime u want! Nope, Dumbledore wasn't the person I was talking abt. U think I offer a window to her soul? O wow thanx! I could ask for no higher praise in that respect. Nope, Alina aint (hehe, aint is such a funny word) related to Harry, her possible resemblance to Lily is really pure coincidence, that's just the way I pictured her in my head.
Lucky Woods: I MADE U CRY??????!!!!!!!!!! YES ::hops up and down ecstatically:; wow, insensitive again, sry.
Ady: I actually did like the section w/Demetrius, but it was such a small section it wasn't worth mentioning, but thanx? 3D? wow. Ur right, its not just Harry, as u can c in this ch, but u also have to remember that ur ability to detest Alina has been inhibited b/c u have a window into her soul, Harry and everyone else don't, all they c is her dark, mysterious, arrogant, prejudiced exterior. Thanx (A HECK OF A LOT!!!!) glad u enjoyed it!
Jedi Cosmos: great?! Wow, thanx, and awww… ur right, no one really does deserve to gothru that kind of pain, but I have, and still do – tho I think im getting better (I think – but it always comes back if I think abt it too much, or my ex asks me out again, etc). it always comes back when my father blows up again, its inevitable, he has a blow up at least a few times a month. im starting to think that he has a borderline personality… do u kno he once threatened to leave if the house wasn't cleaner? How messed up is that? Well, he did come back down later all upset and apologetic and I was hysterical and he was all apologetic, but it still hurts to think abt it, even if he didn't mean it. He had a very hard childhood, my father, the way his parents treated him, and hes still not speaking to his sister – neither r his other sisters, and the whole familys torn apart. My father is a very hard person to live with, one minute ur in the clouds and hes telling u how much he loves u and how wonderful and intelligent u r, and how the happiest moment of his life was when I was born, the next ,moment, hes screaming at u (and he can b extremely intimidating and frightening when hes angry, no mercy) abt how no one listens, how talking to us (my mother, my 9 yr old sis, and I) is like talking to a brick wall and how inconsiderate we al r and all sorts of horrible things. Im the one who fights w/him b/c im the only one with the guts to stand up to him. My sis once cracked and told her school social worker abt some of the things my father would do (one of which he hasn't done in at least a yr –all of a sudden take all my stuff in the living rm and throw it out while screaming and throwing things on the floor and being generally destructive) r classified as emotional abuse, and I usually receive the blunt of it, that's just what happens when ur the oldest, I found this out and confronted him once, he laughed in my face and told me I had no idea what emotional abuse was. The slightest thing will set him off, its like walking on a minefield, hes also sort of controlling, no one else is ever right in his mind, well he doesn't say this outright or believe me when I say it, but its true, its like hes God and hes better than the rest of us, which really angers me. Wow, I guess I really needed to get that off of my chest, sry for doing that to u, that's only one of my problems, unfortunately, it's a prob that wont go away, and I can never quite cope w/. u prob think my fathers some horrible person now, hes not, when hes not in one of his emotional rages hes a wonderful person, unfortunately – this always ends in a blow up. ::sighs:: glad u enjoyed the food fight. Alina – feel better, make friends w/the trio? Ha! As much as I would love that, trust me it aint (I luv that word) that simple, hun, as much as I wish it was, coming from someone whos been thru a very rocky emotional rd and is still on it, it's a long recovery process, a very hard rd filled w/remission and unfortunately reversion, its very hard, and Alina's human after all, shes not going to have it quite as ez. Iv got her all worked out of course, but I cant tell u anything abt that ::evil grin:: shell have it difficult, but that doesn't mean shell always b filled w/depression and angst, she will b happy at some pts, im not that mean I can promise u that.
Jona: ::Screams and hides shaking in corner:: OKAY OKAY! THANX!
WELL, THAT'S IT, 5 REVIEWS, AN ALL-TIME-LOW? ISNT THAT SAD?
SEE YTA NEXT TIEM, LUV YAS ALL!
Naralina