"Healer Jordan! You're all right!" Harry's legs started to tremble and he realized that he'd been more scared than he let on.
She groaned. "I'm not sure if all right is the correct phrase. Can't someone do something about that light? I can't see a thing."
"It's the null thingy," Septima explained. "None of us can see… it is too bright."
"Ah, well okay, then. I guess we get to experience things from Harry's perspective for a bit. I take it we haven't heard from anyone yet? Criminy. Why is it so cold? Is this ice? How long have I been out?"
"Not long. Quarter of an hour at most," Septima said. "You fell in the pool. Mei saved you."
"Thank you, Mei. I guess that explains why I'm so wet."
"Yeah, as soon as we took the null thing out of the water, everything iced over. Mei is able to use their magic under the cloak… you're both under it right now. And Mei broke through the ice," explained Harry.
The cloak stretched under Harry's hands as Healer Jordan reached up to verify that it was there. Nio was still clinging to Harry's wrist, but he was worried about the little snake. "Would you be warmer in my pocket?" Harry whispered in Parseltongue, as he used his knee to pin down the cloak and slid his hand into his trouser pocket. Nio didn't answer, but slipped into the pocket and nestled into a tight ball. Harry cradled him in his hand, thankful for the bit of warmth in his pocket.
"Do you think you're recovered enough to open up the Egress again, Healer Jordan?" Mei asked.
"Harry thought that Mei should travel out through the Egress and get help from outside the Center. We were thinking that maybe his cloak could contain the null vessel… but we're not sure and since it is the only thing really protecting us from the nulling effects, it would be safer if we weren't all trapped here," Septima explained.
"Spot on. I think you're right that the cloak might be able to contain it. It certainly shields us, but yes, if something were to happen to it… that could be disastrous. Let me see if I can open the Egress. I actually feel better than I have since we got sucked into that cave."
Harry could feel Healer Jordan sitting up under the cloak and heard her muttering the drying charm, presumably on her clothes.
"Oh, that's much better!" she sighed.
"Could you dry me off, too?" Harry asked, through chattering teeth. His T-shirt, balled up on the ground next to his knees, had turned into a lump of ice, the trouser-leg that was dunked in the pool was stiff, and his toes were numb but it was his torso, exposed as it was to the frigid air in the cavern, that burned with cold the most.
"Yeah, just a sec. Let's get the Egress open for Mei and the eel, then we can use the cloak as a shield from the null for you and Septima, too. The sooner we can get some help from outside the Center, the better."
"Harry, Septima, Healer Jordan. I'll find the quickest way to send help. See you soon," Mei said, and then there was a plunk as they disappeared through the Egress in the pool and a final zap of electricity through the air as the eel vanished with them.
The invisibility cloak was moving now, being pulled out from under Harry as Healer Jordan stood up.
"Come on, you two. Let's get you warmed up and then we'll try using the cloak on the null thing," Healer Jordan said as she edged slowly around the side of the pool.
Harry found his cane though his fingers were so numb that he wasn't sure if he was actually holding it. His T-shirt had frozen to the ground and he was afraid he'd cut his fingertips trying to pry it off. He grunted with the effort of trying to dislodge it.
"What are you doing, Harry?" Septima asked.
" . ," he said through gritted teeth.
"Here, we'll come over to where you are and with the cloak over us, we can use magic to thaw all of us at once," Healer Jordan said. After a bit more shuffling, they were huddled around Harry and pulling the cloak over themselves. As the tendrils of warmth snaked around his body, Harry stopped shivering.
"I'm going to start heating us gradually. I don't want to shock your system by going too fast."
Harry slipped his fingers into the pocket of his trousers to check on Little Friend. The snake tickled his fingertips with his tongue and then made his way onto Harry's wrist. Harry brought the snake to his lips and tried to thaw him with his breath.
"That's better. Thank you, Big Friend," Nio hissed contentedly.
"Ugh," Septima groaned next to Harry. "I forgot about your snake."
"This is too cold for him," Harry said.
"Too cold for all of us. Thank Circe for your cloak. I think we'd all be dead if it weren't for this miraculous bit of cloth," said Healer Jordan as she performed the drying charm on Harry's trousers and trainers, as well as his iced-over T-shirt. "I think you can put on your shirt now."
Harry crouched down and found that it was no longer frozen to the ground. He felt along the seams determining the right-side-out and front before he pulled it over his head. It was toasty as it slid over his torso and he practically purred with pleasure at the sensation.
"Thank you. That's heavenly."
As Harry tucked in his shirt and was letting Nio slip in to snuggle against his belly, he heard the sibilant voices of some of his snake friends issuing from the larger cavern. He stilled as he tried to understand what they were saying.
"What is it, Harry?" Healer Jordan asked. "What do you hear?"
"The snakes are back," he said and made a quelling motion with his hand. He realized that it was lost on his two companions as they had their eyes closed tight against the null vessel, same as him.
"They are looking for us… but don't want to come in here because of the ice."
"Harumph," Septima sighed.
"Let's go out to them. Can you guide us, Harry?" Healer Jordan asked.
"Sure," Harry said as he felt the ground in front of him with his cane and moved so that he was in front of Healer Jordan. She put her hand on his shoulder and they moved slowly toward the cavern entrance. He could feel both Healer Jordan and Septima crouching down so that the cloak covered all of them. Harry remembered Godric's advice for walking on ice… to keep his feet wide apart and his knees slightly bent. He passed the advice on to the others. He felt a little silly, but figured that was better than falling.
Besides, no one can see me right now!
As they neared the snakes, Harry could hear them hissing about the blinding light coming from the cavern. Harry slid his hand under his T-shirt and Nio transferred to his wrist, grumbling that he was just getting warm.
"We're over here," Harry called to them in Parseltongue. Harry knelt, leaning lightly on his cane and stuck his fingers out from under the cloak. Nio adjusted himself on Harry's wrist so that his head was also sticking out from under the cloak.
"The leg-walkers are coming!" warned the snakes.
"Thank you for warning us. How far away are they?"
"Near. They are moments away. You must hide. Perhaps you can overpower them. Their chaos sticks don't work once they are near that pool."
Harry took a moment to relay the information to Healer Jordan and Septima as the snakes slithered away to hide in the crevasses and tunnels. He led his friends back into the cavern with the pool.
"They'll know we've been here if the null vessel light is shining into the cavern," Septima noted.
"True. Then we'll lose the element of surprise."
"But if we drop it back into the pool, the nulling effects won't be as strong and they'll be able to see," Harry said. "We have a little bit of an advantage if they can't see, I bet."
"Yes, but how could we block off the light?"
"What if we used the apron? Tied it to the vessel, lower it into the pool so that the light is tolerable, hide, then when they come into the cavern, pull it out and surprise them?" Septima suggested as they found the edge of the pool.
"That could work. Where's the apron?" Healer Jordan asked. "Is it strong enough?"
"It should be here, where we pulled you out of the pool," Harry said, poking around with his cane. "I found it."
His cane tinged against the vessel and he knelt quickly, tying the apron strings to the handles of the vessel. He tugged on them, testing to see if the vessel would burn through the fabric, but it held. "Wow. This is a strong apron. Okay, let's lower it in."
Healer Jordan stooped to help Harry lift the vessel. He half expected it to be frozen to the floor, but though it was still very heavy, it wasn't stuck. "Oh wait. It's iced over, isn't it?"
The sound of the vessel hitting the ice-covered pool echoed around the space and Healer Jordan hissed at them to be more careful.
"Ah, yes. Medusa's comb! How are we going to break through the ice?" Septima groaned, but as she said it a sound like a whip cracking broke through the space and the vessel plopped through a hole in the ice, formed by the vessel itself.
"Hmm. I guess it is warm enough to melt the ice pretty quickly. Weird," Harry said as he braced the vessel that was now hanging from the apron strings.
"Is there a rock nearby that we can tie the apron to while we hide?" Septima asked as she slipped and slid on the ice-covered floor.
"There's a bit of a lip on the side of the pool… that might work. It's over here," Harry directed.
He felt along the pool's edge until he found the lip that he'd braced his foot on and he looped the apron over the protruding edge to keep it from falling all the way in the pool. It clanged softly against the pool's side, vibrating the floor slightly beneath his knees.
"Ah, that's better," Septima sighed.
"I think I hear voices!" Harry said, tilting his head in the direction of the larger cavern.
"Here, come over here. Let's move against the wall," Healer Jordan whispered as she pulled on Harry's arm. He realized that she could see again and pulled his arm out of her grasp so that he could hold onto her.
"Sorry," she muttered. He shrugged in response.
Septima had ducked out from under the cloak and was fiddling with something by the water's edge. She jumped back to where Harry and Healer Jordan were pressed against the wall and scrambled under the cloak with them.
"What were you doing?" Healer Jordan asked.
"I was trying to make the apron less visible. Maybe they won't notice right away that we've been tampering with it," she muttered in response.
"Good thinking. Thanks," Healer Jordan said. "Though they might notice the ice."
Harry hoped that they had doused the light of the vessel soon enough and that they still had the element of surprise. He wondered if it had illuminated the larger cavern and if that light would have been visible in the tunnels. He wondered how the approaching wixen were lighting their way—maybe they were using their wands and they were bright enough to make any light coming from the cavern less noticeable.
"What are we going to do?" Septima whispered.
"Get them under the cloak and stupefy them?" Healer Jordan said.
"Then they have to stay under the cloak for the magic to stick," Harry reminded her. "And there's barely any room under here as it is."
"Push them into the pool?" Septima suggested.
"That would work better if the eel was still here," Harry muttered.
"True," breathed Healer Jordan. "We don't even know if they are going to come into this cavern. Maybe they are headed back to the Center."
"Hush," Septima said as the voices became more distinct. Harry realized that it was mostly one voice. And it was an angry voice. And he didn't seem to be concerned at all that someone might be down here. From the way it was bouncing around, it seemed like they were still in the tunnels and hadn't yet emerged into the cavern.
Harry was thankful to be warm again and Nio, who was curled on his wrist, seemed to be more alert than he'd been in a while.
"Harry, your cane! It's sticking out from under the cloak!" Septima hissed.
Harry pulled it closer to his body.
"Maybe we could use it to trip them when they come in?" Healer Jordan suggested in a very low voice.
Harry passed it to her, though part of him was worried that it would break. His stomach churned at the thought of having to navigate through the tunnels without it. It was bad enough not having his staff with all of its magical features.
Healer Jordan quietly switched places with Septima so that she was nearest the cavern entrance. Harry remembered how they'd had to stoop to go through it and he imagined that the people approaching were much bigger. Tripping them with the cane might actually work.
Harry held his breath as the voice approached their hiding spot. He wondered why they would want to come near the null thing… it was such a dangerous artifact for magicals to willingly move toward.
Maybe they are planning on moving it?
They stopped and the angry man was ordering his companion to bind his own wrists with a rope. The other man spoke in dull monosyllables in response and only when an answer was demanded. Now it sounded like the captive was being forced to walk in front of the angry man. Their steps were crunching on the dirt path outside the cavern entrance. Harry sucked in sips of breath. Septima's hand clutching his arm was trembling and Healer Jordan was crouched low in front of him, his cane held in her right hand parallel to the cavern floor, ready to thrust across the doorway as the two entered.
Then suddenly everyone was moving at once. Healer Jordan had rammed the cane forward with a strength and precision that Harry couldn't help but admire even in the chaos as their bodies moved together.
There was a sickening crack and Harry was certain that the cane had been broken. Healer Jordan had managed to pull the cane back under the cloak and the three of them crouched against the wall under the cloak as the two men stumbled and slid across the ice on the cavern floor. Harry resisted the urge to feel along the cane and find the break as the cries of the falling men reverberated off the walls.
They thudded and groaned as they landed on the floor, one of them was frantically scrabbling across the icy floor. Healer Jordan lurched forward from under the cloak, her boots skidding across the ice and there was an ominous crunch as a body fell onto the crusted ice in the pool and then the resounding splintering screech of the ice breaking under the weight. The man gasped and cried out as he fell through and water and chunks of ice sprayed the room.
Septima whispered a hurried order to Harry to stay put as she slipped from underneath the cloak and skated across the ice-covered floor to help Healer Jordan with the man on the floor. Harry transferred Nio to his neck as he crouched down and felt along the length of the cane.
"Big Friend, your seeing stick is indeed broken."
"Yeah, I thought so," Harry whispered.
He flicked out his wand and muttered the repairing charm while touching it to the aluminum casing. He ran his fingers over the area again and was reassured that the cane was repaired for now.
"Mr. Khan! Can you hear me?" Healer Jordan asked.
Aminah's dad? Harry drew in a quick breath at the revelation.
The man in the water surfaced with a loud gasp and splash and Septima cried out. Harry flicked his wand back into the holster, pulled the cloak close around him, and swung the cane forward in an arc. It collided with a soft form on the ground and he tapped gently around it to make his way to Septima with some guidance from Nio. Septima, who seemed to be crouched at the side of the pool, was frantically calling to the man in the pool to grab her hand. Harry found her back and knelt down beside her.
"Here, use my cane!" Harry offered, pushing it across the surface of the ice. Once it emerged from under the cloak, he could feel the end that had been repaired break again, snagging on the surface of the ice at an odd angle.
"Oh, Harry! I told you to stay put," Septima cried out. "And your cane is broken!"
"It's okay. Use it to reach the bloke in the water."
"Grab the stick!" Septima called out to him as she took the cane from Harry's hands.
Harry, with his hand on Septima's arm, felt the weight of the man as he pulled on the cane. He was definitely heavier than Healer Jordan. Harry grabbed the cane below Septima's hands and pulled with her, but it felt like the man was losing his grip and starting to submerge deeper into the water.
"Big Friend, I think he's succumbing to the nothing," Nio observed.
"The vessel!" Harry gasped. He stumbled away from Septima, feeling along the pool's edge until his hands grazed over the apron strings looped over the rock. He tugged on the apron strings, trying to lift the vessel out of the water and the cloak slipped off his head.
"Harry, let me help you," Healer Jordan said as she came up next to him. He pulled the invisibility cloak over his head again. Her voice sounded strained.
"Here, get under here with me. You're getting zapped again," he invited, and let go of the apron for a moment to lift up the cloak and allow Healer Jordan to join him underneath.
Aminah's father groaned… it sounded like he was sitting up against the cavern wall now. "You should let that vile man drown… after everything he's done to my family—to my daughter!"
"We'll make sure he's brought to justice, but we can't…" Healer Jordan grunted as she tried to speak while also pulling the vessel out of the icy water with Harry. "Ugh, Everyone. Close your eyes. This thing burns bright."
"Wait, what are you doing?" Mr. Khan shouted.
"We're pulling the vessel out of the water," Healer Jordan explained.
"You can't do that. Ahura Mazda's flame will siphon off our magical cores. It's too dangerous to be in the same area as it without the protection of the water!" Mr. Khan's voice rose as he stood up, groaning with the effort.
"We can survive for a short period. We know. We've already done this," Healer Jordan said. "And that man is drowning in the pool. We're trying to save him!"
"He's the one who caused all this suffering. If anyone should lose their magic because of it, it should be him. Or better yet, let him die! You pushed him in there!"
"I was just trying to incapacitate him, not kill him," Healer Jordan grunted.
Healer Jordan and Harry strained more and the vessel broke the surface of the slushy water. Harry had already closed his eyes against the light. The sound of ice forming again on the surface of the pool as the vessel emerged cleaved through the air in piercing shrieks and groans.
Septima cried out and Harry wondered if the man had fallen below the surface of the water and was now trapped under the ice, but he heard a groan and guessed that his head was above the surface at least.
"Harry, you're the lightest of us. Can you walk across the ice with the cloak and use magic to melt the ice and get him out?"
"He can't use magic," Mr. Khan said.
"Under the cloak he can," Healer Jordan explained.
"What?" Mr. Khan uttered. "How is that possible?"
"Yes, I'll do it. Septima, can I have my cane?"
"It's frozen to the pond, Harry. Sorry," Septima said.
"No worries. Nio, you'll guide me, right?"
"You should distribute your weight. Crawl on your belly, Harry," Healer Jordan advised as she slipped out from under the cloak. "Be quick."
Harry put his hands on the ice and pushed to see if it would hold. It groaned slightly, but didn't move. He moved out onto the ice toward the sound of the man's strangled breaths and with help from Nio. His hands burned with cold. His knees and torso were at least were protected a bit by his clothes. He moved as quickly as he dared and when his sweeping hands found his cane he followed it to the man trapped in the ice. Harry flicked out his wand and covered the man with the cloak while kneeling near him. He touched his wand to the man's arm and enchanted, "Moblicorpus."
There was a tremendous cracking as the body rose. Harry tried to pull the cloak over both of them as he emerged. He was struggling to make it stay and realized that part of the problem was that Harry's cane was frozen to the man's hand as well as the ice on the pool's surface. He rotated his position so that he could keep him levitated while also holding the cloak over both of them. The cane came away from the ice, but with splintering noise. Harry wasn't sure how much cane remained embedded in the ice and how much was frozen to the man's hand.
"Is it working?" Septima called.
"I think so," Harry panted as he started crawling back to the edge of the pool on three limbs while his wand arm stayed in contact with the man who had caused all this chaos and pain. The man's breath was labored.
"Nio, is the leg-walker awake?"
"He slumbers, Big Friend."
They reached the side of the pool and as he found that he was on solid ground again, Harry ended the levitation charm and the man's body thudded onto the ice-covered floor.
"Everyone under the cloak," Harry ordered.
"We don't all fit!" Septima protested.
"That cloak! You can send the eternal flame back to the altar if that cloak is what I think it is," Mr. Khan said.