Yes. Another Post.

We're really heading toward the end now.

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Chapter 38: Trials and Tribulations

"Lumos." Said Fay, flicking her want down into the pit. The little ball of light flew down, illuminating the darkness.

Inside was all creeping, oily-black vines and at the furthest end of a long, low space, a door.

"Looks like we'll have a soft landing, at least." Harry said, putting his wand between his teeth and dropping his legs down into the hole. "There isn't a ladder, but we can climb down the vines."

He started to descend, gripping the thick, ropey vines. They made for easy hand and foot holds that writhed slightly as he grasped them.

It was about ten feet to the black, spongy ground. Above him, Fay was halfway down and Hermione taking a tentative first step onto the vines.

"Check the door?" Harry asked when Fay touched the floor.

She nodded and started stepping gingerly across the matted vines and Harry turned back to see Hermione picking her way down, doing surprisingly well.

"Harry?" Fay asked, sounding concerned.

"Hang on, Fay. Hermione, I've got you, put your foot on my hand. That's right." Harry said.

"No, Harry, you need to look."

"I've got you." Harry said, as he helped Hermione down the last few steps.

"Harry! The plant has you!"

"What?" Harry looked down.

At first it looked like he had started to sink into the vines, but noticed that there were thin black tendrils climbing up his ankles.

"You too!" he shouted, seeing the same happening to Fay. She was trying to step toward them but her feet were stuck fast.

"What is this?" Fay shouted.

Hermione screamed as the tendrils started to creep up her legs too.

Harry's legs buckled as the vines reached his knees and immediately started climbing up his thighs.

"Incendio!" Fay shouted, aiming at the ground at her feet. Light flared but the vines continued unabated.

"I know this!" Hermione said as she was pulled from her feet.

Harry grabbed his wand and from pure instinct, stabbed the vine coiling around his waist.

Light crackled around Hermione. "Terra mortuum!" She shouted, her voice booming and echoing around the chamber.

All around them the vines writhed and twisted, silent except for the way they scraped across one another. The black rapidly fades to a decayed brown and the vines crumbled to dust.

"Hermione!" Harry said, rolling to his feet, dust flying from his robes.

He scrabbled over to Hermione who was still, motionless on the floor. He turned her onto her back and saw how pale she had become. Her skin was paper-white and her hair looked brittle.

Fay arrived at his side. "That was amazing, oh no. Was it too much, is she dead?"

Harry hunched over Hermione's pale form. "No, she's breathing."

Fay sat back on her haunches, relieved. "So she's burned out. She'll be okay though?"

Harry shrugged. "I don't know, I've never seen anything like this before. What was that spell?"

Fay stared at him. "The dead earth. It's a terrible curse, something to do with killing plants and making water undrinkable. I have no idea where she came up with it. Probably read it in a book for seventh years."

Chuckling to himself, Harry laughed. He pulled his father's cloak out and put it under Hermione's head. "Let's move, we might not have long."

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They went through to door into a high chamber littered with many hundreds of keys all over the floor. The keys had wings. They walked toward the door opposite which hung ajar, their feet kicking aside more than a dozen of the long, old fashioned keys as they walked.

"I don't understand." Said Fay over the loud rattling.

"Nor me, but look." Harry said, pointing to the door ahead. Stuck into the lock was another key, a little shabbier than the others with one wing broken off.

"Can you smell that?" Harry asked as they reached the door.

Fay nodded. "Burning metal, cinnamon. It's like Professor Shacklebolt said: breaking spells with brute-force is difficult."

"That's right. 'it leaves traces behind' he said." Harry remembered the class where Kingsley had taught the theory of stopping spells by counterspelling them before they had the chance to take effect. He had also explained that it was possible to forcibly break a spell, preventing it from working at all.

"That must be what… Quirrell did here." Fay replied.

"Me too." Said Harry, but he wasn't afraid, not really. He felt hot and cold at the same time, the smell in the air filled his head. It resulted in a kind of serene calm. He took her hand and led her into the next room.

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A pile of meat steamed in the cold air of the next room. Blood was sprayed around in all directions and the smell that hit Harry's nostrils was terrible.

Skirting around the dead creature, Harry saw a large wooden club on the floor, a large grey hand still wrapped around the handle.

"It was a troll." Harry said, pointing at the club.

Fay nodded. "Poor thing. I wonder what spell that was."

Without replying, Harry carried on. He felt like he almost knew what was coming next. As he pulled the door open he had the strongest feeling of déjà vu.

The next room was a ruin. In the centre of the huge space, there was a raised platform divided into black and white squares like a chessboard. All around the space were large piles of crumbled stone and in the centre of the board, sitting on the cross made by two black and two white squares lay an iron crown smashed and broken.

"I love chess." Harry said as they walked across the board to another door.

An eye, part of a face that had been smashed to rubble looked up at him as he passed, blinking solemnly.

A burned hole had replaced the lock on the door.

He grasped the handle and pulled, feeling like he'd done the same before.

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His hand was a smoking, skeletal wreck.

"No more. I – I can't." He said.

You will. You must. He thought.

They were both him. Neither of them were him.

Pain shot through his head, making his hand shake violently for a moment. The mirror was there and none of it made any sense.

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He was being shaken. The floor was hard and cold.

"Wake up!" Fay called again.

"What?" Harry said, pushing himself to his hands and knees. "What happened?"

"I don't know." She said, taking his hand and pulling him to his feet. "You just… stopped and fell on your face."

"I don't understand." He said, rubbing his scar. It prickled like it was fizzing. "There's someone up ahead. There's some kind of mirror."

He stepped forward toward the door, rubbing his scar.

"What… Harry?" Fay said behind him.

Turning Harry looked at her. She had her hands out, touching as if patting an invisible wall like a mime. "What's wrong?"

She slapped forward, her hand stopping in mid-air. "I don't know. There's something there, I can't…"

Somehow, this seemed inevitable. He nodded. "I understand."

"What do you mean, why can you get through and I can't?" She said, tears appearing at her eyes.

"I don't know. I think it has to be me. I think Quirrell put up a ward, but I can get through. I think it has to be me."

"We can still go back."

He shook his head, knowing that wasn't an option. "You go. You get Hermione up to the hospital wing. I'll go do this."

Fay looked scared. "You can't. I… Harry, you're scaring me."

Harry smiled. "It's okay. I can do this, he's broken."

"What do you even mean?"

Harry didn't know. "I'm not sure. Whatever's happening to him won't happen to me. I can go. I mean it, you go back, take Hermione and bring help. Bring whoever is left in the castle. At least I can keep him from getting… whatever he's after."

Tears were running down Fay's face. He remembered her telling him about aurors and when he had watched her dance in the clubhouse. He reached down and drew her wand from her belt, putting it in her hand for her.

"You will fight the darkness. I will too; we just can't do it together right now." He said, cupping the side of her face with his hand.

She looked up at him, eyes bright but dry again. "You're scaring me, Harry."

"I know, I'm sorry. I need you to do this, you go and get help." He stepped backward and turned on his heel, stepping up to the door.

She made to follow him but stopped and held out a hand to him, as if silently asking him to take it and go with her.

In that moment he saw the choice he had before him. He could either take her hand and be safe, risk the future, risk whatever Quirrell was doing or risk himself. He knew that something terrible was happening, that he could help it.

It wasn't a choice for him.

He turned and walked through the door.

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The doorway led onto a long corridor that eventually opened on a small chamber, the whole contents of which were smashed and reduced to collections of broken glass and shattered splinters of wood.

The door at the opposite side of the room was simply gone, except for a single brass hinge still attached to the frame.

As he stepped into the room, he found himself completely alone for the first time since arriving at the Hogwarts.

Even when bathing, Hogwarts was full of sounds, smells and activity, so there was never any kind of real silence. But this room was different.

Something had passed through there – recently, but that had passed and Harry was suddenly aware of absolute and profound silence.

There were no drips, no wind, no rustling papers. There was just him.

The smell of burnt metal and cinnamon was still strong, the scent of forcibly broken magics.

Harry paused for a moment, reflecting on one of McGonagall's earliest lessons.

Control is everything. She had said. Control of magic comes through control of the self. One controls the self by controlling the mind and the mind by controlling the body.

He closed his eyes and flexed his hands, taking several deep breaths. He felt the power inside him, understood that it was there and where it came from.

Control of the body starts with control of the breath.

The lessons came back to him easily. He started breathing consciously, controlling each breath in and out. His heartrate started to slow and his mind evened out, which in turn opened the door to his magic wider.

"Thank you, Professor." He said, opening his eyes after a few seconds.

He drew his wand again and felt it connect to him, like a part of his own soul joined to… something within the wand. There was a moment where he felt something similar in his other hand, followed by his scar fizz-prickling again.

Aware of his whole body, he stepped forward, hearing the small tinkling of broken glass as he scrunched through it. The air around the doorway was hot and felt thick, like walking through water. As he walked the feeling grew, not affecting his breathing, but slowing him and starting to obscure his vision.

After a dozen steps it was genuinely hard to walk and Harry had to lean forward, forcing himself through.

Then it broke and he staggered forward into another room.

It looked like an old amphitheatre: a large circle of tiered stone seats. At the bottom of the amphitheatre, in the middle of the room was a large silvery mirror and a man, hunched and smoking.

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