Grrr, those stupid things! I'm not putting those things as apostrophes; they're just turning out that way when I upload the document onto ff.net. Does anybody know why this is happening/how to stop it? Please let me know if you do. Okay, here's the chapter you've all been waiting for! *drumroll*
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She almost passed the door to the room. It wasn't really a door, but a weeping portrait blubbering to himself about how life was terrible and how morose he was. It was lucky Chloe stopped to agree with him or she certainly would have missed it.
"Oh, dreadful, horribly awful," sobbed the painting.
Chloe nodded. "I know just what you mean. It's not right, is it?" she asked more to herself than the portrait, but he answered anyway.
"No, not right, perfectly wrong, it is . . . shouldn't happen to a decent person, just terrible . . . " he answered.
"You know, I think we've got something in common," Chloe said, crossing her arms and tilting her head. Her tone matched the melancholies of the portrait.
The portrait nodded, finally looking directly at her. "Do you despair?" he asked her in a slightly more-formal-than-needed tone.
She looked at him for a long time, letting the question sink in. It finally did, and she nodded, meaning it. The painting suddenly slid up the wall just enough to let Chloe pass under a small opening that looked like a waterfall, but she was only wet during the passing. She came out dry on the other side, and she turned around just in time to see the portrait slide back down. She turned to face the room she'd just entered. "This is it," she thought, "this is the room."
In front of her was a wide room with marble floors and two high walls. There was a large door on the opposite side ostensibly leading to another room. It was completely empty save for what lined the walls: two neat rows of white ceramic busts. On one side where there was a bust, there was one to match directly opposite. She tried to recognize some of the faces on them, but she couldn't find anyone she knew.
"That's interesting," she thought, but thought nothing else and made to walk to the other side of the room. She'd taken a half step past the first pair of busts when she felt like somebody had shoved her back, and she landed hard against the wall she'd passed through moments before.
Chloe stood up, dazed. She couldn't figure out what it was that had forced her back. She was pondering deeply, looking around, when she was startled to find the two busts she'd tried to pass arguing heatedly.
"All your fault . . ." she caught out of the mouth of the one on her left.
"Not welcome here, should have been thrown out decades ago," spat the other one. Before she'd completely come to her senses, the next pair of busts started arguing, then the next, and so on down the line until the noise gave her a headache.
"Shut up!" she screamed as loudly as she could, but none of them seemed to have heard her. She stepped forward again, gently placing a finger out in front of her in line vertically with the mouths of the shouting busts. It bounced back behind her; then she brought it to rest by her side. "Very interesting," she thought.
Then she put her hand over their heads, and nothing happened. She put her hand below, nothing happened. So to get across the room, all she had to do was crawl under. But they were so low she would have to shimmy on her stomach or crab-crawl on her back, making sure not to lift her knees to high. This she did, paying close attention to each pair of busts as she passed them.
Finally, once she had gone far enough past the last pair (which wasn't very far, considering they were at most a foot from the door and she was brushing up against it), she stood up and wasn't thrown anywhere. She gave a sigh of relief and turned to the new challenge she faced. She thought of any passwords she would maybe need to recite, or a spell to unlock it. But would Alohamora work on this? She folded her arms and studied the door.
"Oh I'm being silly . . . what would Sirius do? Burst through the door, no problem," she answered herself, and she reached out, tugging on the handle, and the door opened. "That's it?" she asked a little more loudly than she needed to, and the words echoed through both the room she'd passed through and the one she'd just opened the door to. The busts had slowly quieted down, and this was the first time she'd noticed.
Still keeping in mind what Sirius would do, she crept into the new room, whispering "Lumos," and continuing with a faint light on her wand. She couldn't see much, but she could feel something like debris from a wreck as she waded through the room. She could now feel water seeping in through her shoes and socks. There was a faint glowing in front of her that wasn't her wand, and her eyes began to adjust. There were bulky shapes lying around the edges of the room with pillars in a circle around what looked to be some sort of shrine.
As she came closer, and the water, now up to her calves, began to pull harder, she could tell it was a mirror. "Not the mirror of Erised…" she muttered. When she put her wand up to the top, she could tell it wasn't. She'd heard from eavesdropping on the golden trio (Hermione, Ron, and Harry) that it had an engraving on the top that marked it as such, and there was no such engraving on this dusty mirror.
But as she looked down the sides, she saw markings engraved in the stone encasing the mirror that weren't letters from any language she'd ever heard of. She ran a finger along the markings; then she rubbed her sleeve against the dusty glass.
Two things happened: the first thing was that lights came on in the room, from where she did not know; the second thing that happened was that she saw herself in the mirror, but a somewhat younger version. Her hair was longer. It must have been her sixth year. For a moment, it was just this younger Chloe staring back at her with a glowing light in her eyes that was typical of a love-struck teen. She wasn't smiling, but her eyes were.
As Chloe watched, the background filled in. She was in the Shrieking Shack. The boards behind the girl in the mirror became apparent, as did the bed she was leaning against. Then the girl looked a little farther away as a darker figure appeared in front of her, which Chloe recognized as the weathered but still proud form of Sirius.
Then she was watching from the profile of the two people, their lips met, the girl's hands met each other around the man's neck. His hands rested on her hips. Chloe could feel those hands on her hips and she shivered, the only part of her moving were her lips, which trembled uncontrollably. She stepped as close to the mirror as she could, tears beginning to cloud her vision. "No," she thought, blinking them away and wiping her eyes. "I have to see."
The two forms were on the bed, some clothing removed, but the vital pieces still remaining attached to the bodies. After a long time of cuddling and kissing, the two relaxed into each other's arms and looked up at the torn canopy.
"What's going to happen after all this is over, Siri?" the girl asked, her voice very far away, as if under water. Chloe had to strain to hear her.
"What do you mean? After all what is over?" he answered, and Chloe shivered again at the sound of his voice.
"This isn't going to last forever, is it? Either Harry or Voldemort is going to triumph, and although Harry seems an unlikely hero, he's got to win no matter what, so I know he will. So after he does, things won't quite be the same anymore, will they?"
"Well, they'll be pretty damn close. People thought he was gone last time, and they celebrated for a while; in the meantime I mourned the Potters…" he trailed off, leaving both of them silent for a bit. "But then things quieted down, and people pretended things were the way they were before he came to power and ruined so many lives. It's just the way people are, it's in our nature to need things to be okay."
The people in the mirror digested this insight as tears leaked from Chloe's eyes. His wisdom hadn't meant as much then as it did now. Her younger self continued.
"So what'll happen between us? Next year I'll have to find a job. I think I'm gonna run away like you did. Knowing my mom, she'll keep anything I make just so I'll never be able to leave. She'll say it's for the family, but I know she'll spend it on some fancy thing for herself. So I'm leaving her, maybe live with a couple friends. But then I won't really be able to come see you very often, will I?"
"You never know," he answered simply, and she hadn't known what he'd meant then. She did now, and she silenced a sob so that she could listen.
"You think we'll be together forever?" the girl asked.
"Of course. I can't leave you, and you can't leave me. We're together forever now no matter what, you know, and nothing will break us. It's like the Potters. Nothing came between them once they really found each other, not even death. They're still together now, I'd bet my life on it. And we will be too, no matter what. Not even death can break us."
They both thought about that, as did Chloe. The memory faded from the mirror, and Chloe stepped back through the current of water. Random objects floated by, but she didn't notice. She went through the open door, closed it noiselessly, crawled under the quiet busts, and drew a square on the wall with her wand, opening the little waterfall. She didn't know how she knew what to do, but she didn't care to wonder.
She passed through, brushed off her skirt and was standing, and quite dry for all the water she'd been through, listened to the moping portrait. She was surprised to find even her cheeks were dry. She still didn't bother to ask. As she turned to go back to Gryffindor Tower, she could have sworn she'd seen Albus Dumbledore out of the corner of her eye, but she didn't stop to confirm her suspicions. She had enough to digest as it was.
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I know that was really long so I won't spend too much time talking here. I'm really sorry for all those weird things! I don't know how to make them go away. If you do, please let me know! And thank you for reviewing
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She almost passed the door to the room. It wasn't really a door, but a weeping portrait blubbering to himself about how life was terrible and how morose he was. It was lucky Chloe stopped to agree with him or she certainly would have missed it.
"Oh, dreadful, horribly awful," sobbed the painting.
Chloe nodded. "I know just what you mean. It's not right, is it?" she asked more to herself than the portrait, but he answered anyway.
"No, not right, perfectly wrong, it is . . . shouldn't happen to a decent person, just terrible . . . " he answered.
"You know, I think we've got something in common," Chloe said, crossing her arms and tilting her head. Her tone matched the melancholies of the portrait.
The portrait nodded, finally looking directly at her. "Do you despair?" he asked her in a slightly more-formal-than-needed tone.
She looked at him for a long time, letting the question sink in. It finally did, and she nodded, meaning it. The painting suddenly slid up the wall just enough to let Chloe pass under a small opening that looked like a waterfall, but she was only wet during the passing. She came out dry on the other side, and she turned around just in time to see the portrait slide back down. She turned to face the room she'd just entered. "This is it," she thought, "this is the room."
In front of her was a wide room with marble floors and two high walls. There was a large door on the opposite side ostensibly leading to another room. It was completely empty save for what lined the walls: two neat rows of white ceramic busts. On one side where there was a bust, there was one to match directly opposite. She tried to recognize some of the faces on them, but she couldn't find anyone she knew.
"That's interesting," she thought, but thought nothing else and made to walk to the other side of the room. She'd taken a half step past the first pair of busts when she felt like somebody had shoved her back, and she landed hard against the wall she'd passed through moments before.
Chloe stood up, dazed. She couldn't figure out what it was that had forced her back. She was pondering deeply, looking around, when she was startled to find the two busts she'd tried to pass arguing heatedly.
"All your fault . . ." she caught out of the mouth of the one on her left.
"Not welcome here, should have been thrown out decades ago," spat the other one. Before she'd completely come to her senses, the next pair of busts started arguing, then the next, and so on down the line until the noise gave her a headache.
"Shut up!" she screamed as loudly as she could, but none of them seemed to have heard her. She stepped forward again, gently placing a finger out in front of her in line vertically with the mouths of the shouting busts. It bounced back behind her; then she brought it to rest by her side. "Very interesting," she thought.
Then she put her hand over their heads, and nothing happened. She put her hand below, nothing happened. So to get across the room, all she had to do was crawl under. But they were so low she would have to shimmy on her stomach or crab-crawl on her back, making sure not to lift her knees to high. This she did, paying close attention to each pair of busts as she passed them.
Finally, once she had gone far enough past the last pair (which wasn't very far, considering they were at most a foot from the door and she was brushing up against it), she stood up and wasn't thrown anywhere. She gave a sigh of relief and turned to the new challenge she faced. She thought of any passwords she would maybe need to recite, or a spell to unlock it. But would Alohamora work on this? She folded her arms and studied the door.
"Oh I'm being silly . . . what would Sirius do? Burst through the door, no problem," she answered herself, and she reached out, tugging on the handle, and the door opened. "That's it?" she asked a little more loudly than she needed to, and the words echoed through both the room she'd passed through and the one she'd just opened the door to. The busts had slowly quieted down, and this was the first time she'd noticed.
Still keeping in mind what Sirius would do, she crept into the new room, whispering "Lumos," and continuing with a faint light on her wand. She couldn't see much, but she could feel something like debris from a wreck as she waded through the room. She could now feel water seeping in through her shoes and socks. There was a faint glowing in front of her that wasn't her wand, and her eyes began to adjust. There were bulky shapes lying around the edges of the room with pillars in a circle around what looked to be some sort of shrine.
As she came closer, and the water, now up to her calves, began to pull harder, she could tell it was a mirror. "Not the mirror of Erised…" she muttered. When she put her wand up to the top, she could tell it wasn't. She'd heard from eavesdropping on the golden trio (Hermione, Ron, and Harry) that it had an engraving on the top that marked it as such, and there was no such engraving on this dusty mirror.
But as she looked down the sides, she saw markings engraved in the stone encasing the mirror that weren't letters from any language she'd ever heard of. She ran a finger along the markings; then she rubbed her sleeve against the dusty glass.
Two things happened: the first thing was that lights came on in the room, from where she did not know; the second thing that happened was that she saw herself in the mirror, but a somewhat younger version. Her hair was longer. It must have been her sixth year. For a moment, it was just this younger Chloe staring back at her with a glowing light in her eyes that was typical of a love-struck teen. She wasn't smiling, but her eyes were.
As Chloe watched, the background filled in. She was in the Shrieking Shack. The boards behind the girl in the mirror became apparent, as did the bed she was leaning against. Then the girl looked a little farther away as a darker figure appeared in front of her, which Chloe recognized as the weathered but still proud form of Sirius.
Then she was watching from the profile of the two people, their lips met, the girl's hands met each other around the man's neck. His hands rested on her hips. Chloe could feel those hands on her hips and she shivered, the only part of her moving were her lips, which trembled uncontrollably. She stepped as close to the mirror as she could, tears beginning to cloud her vision. "No," she thought, blinking them away and wiping her eyes. "I have to see."
The two forms were on the bed, some clothing removed, but the vital pieces still remaining attached to the bodies. After a long time of cuddling and kissing, the two relaxed into each other's arms and looked up at the torn canopy.
"What's going to happen after all this is over, Siri?" the girl asked, her voice very far away, as if under water. Chloe had to strain to hear her.
"What do you mean? After all what is over?" he answered, and Chloe shivered again at the sound of his voice.
"This isn't going to last forever, is it? Either Harry or Voldemort is going to triumph, and although Harry seems an unlikely hero, he's got to win no matter what, so I know he will. So after he does, things won't quite be the same anymore, will they?"
"Well, they'll be pretty damn close. People thought he was gone last time, and they celebrated for a while; in the meantime I mourned the Potters…" he trailed off, leaving both of them silent for a bit. "But then things quieted down, and people pretended things were the way they were before he came to power and ruined so many lives. It's just the way people are, it's in our nature to need things to be okay."
The people in the mirror digested this insight as tears leaked from Chloe's eyes. His wisdom hadn't meant as much then as it did now. Her younger self continued.
"So what'll happen between us? Next year I'll have to find a job. I think I'm gonna run away like you did. Knowing my mom, she'll keep anything I make just so I'll never be able to leave. She'll say it's for the family, but I know she'll spend it on some fancy thing for herself. So I'm leaving her, maybe live with a couple friends. But then I won't really be able to come see you very often, will I?"
"You never know," he answered simply, and she hadn't known what he'd meant then. She did now, and she silenced a sob so that she could listen.
"You think we'll be together forever?" the girl asked.
"Of course. I can't leave you, and you can't leave me. We're together forever now no matter what, you know, and nothing will break us. It's like the Potters. Nothing came between them once they really found each other, not even death. They're still together now, I'd bet my life on it. And we will be too, no matter what. Not even death can break us."
They both thought about that, as did Chloe. The memory faded from the mirror, and Chloe stepped back through the current of water. Random objects floated by, but she didn't notice. She went through the open door, closed it noiselessly, crawled under the quiet busts, and drew a square on the wall with her wand, opening the little waterfall. She didn't know how she knew what to do, but she didn't care to wonder.
She passed through, brushed off her skirt and was standing, and quite dry for all the water she'd been through, listened to the moping portrait. She was surprised to find even her cheeks were dry. She still didn't bother to ask. As she turned to go back to Gryffindor Tower, she could have sworn she'd seen Albus Dumbledore out of the corner of her eye, but she didn't stop to confirm her suspicions. She had enough to digest as it was.
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I know that was really long so I won't spend too much time talking here. I'm really sorry for all those weird things! I don't know how to make them go away. If you do, please let me know! And thank you for reviewing
