Chapter 3 –Saving the Blue Rose

AN:

Oni:

I do not own Harry

I do not own Garry

Nor Mary or Guertena

Ownership I do not carry

For the first ten chapters, I'm sorry

But right now I am only the beta

Harry: That was a terrible disclaimer – I think my ears are bleeding.

Mary: On with the story!

Entering the next room Harry was met with a very silly painting. The painting was a red smiley face with its tongue hanging out of its mouth waving back and forth. As soon as Harry approached the painting however, it spit something at him. Immediately Harry backed away from the spit. He looked down at the spit only to see it eating away at the ground, it was like acid.

Next to the spitting painting, there was a small white painting. Looking closer Harry realized that there was a small 9 written in the center.

Moving over to the right he saw some yellow writing on the wall, "BEWARE OF LIPS". Walking further down, he saw a pair of red lips.

'This must be the lips that it was talking about," Harry thought.

Harry moved on down the hallway and picked up a letter off the ground. The letter read, "Just when you've forgotten..."

'Forgotten what?' Harry thought before a memory came to light.

"The black arms!" Harry remembered. "Of course..."

Harry walked cautiously down the center of the aisle. Near the end of the aisle, a lone black hand shot out of the wall and tried to grab him. Unfortunately for the hand, Harry was just out of its reach. At the end of the hallway, Harry saw something that greatly disturbed him at first glance.

To his right were what appeared to be children hanging from red ropes from the ceiling. Although he really didn't want to, he inspected them a little more closely. Up close, Harry could clearly see that the "children" were actually only dolls. As he walked farther down the hall, a doll suddenly dropped down and splayed on the floor.

Harry's curiosity perked up at the sudden event. Creeping over to the doll, he glanced down. An 18 was seen on the doll's clothes. A 9 and an 18... What could this possibly mean? As he moved on, he came across a yellow door.

The door seemed to require a password. X x X + X = ? Reading the problem, Harry realized that he was going to have to find a third number.

Going back, he discovered another yellow door. There was a sign in front of it, "The Liars' Room", it read. Turning the doorknob, he found that the door was unlocked.

In the room were six portraits of black silhouettes. On the left side, the silhouettes wore green, orange, and yellow clothing. On the right side were silhouettes wearing blue, white and red. Between the two sides was a single door. Entering, he saw a lone white statue. In front of the statue was an inscription reading, "There's an odd one out...". With this cryptic message in his head, Harry headed back to the liars. Standing in front of each portrait, he began to read the writing under each one.

The green portrait read, "Stand in front of the statue, go west 3 steps, then south 1 step. That's the answer!"

The orange portrait read, "Stand in front of the statue, go east 4 steps, then north 2 steps. That's the answer!"

The yellow portrait read, "The one in white speaks the truth!"

The blue portrait read, "The only truth-speaker wears green!"

The white portrait read, "Stand in front of the statue, go east 2 steps, then south 2 steps. That's the answer!"

The red portrait read, "I agree with the one in yellow!"

Apparently, all the portraits were lying except for one of them, he realized. Which one was telling the truth, though? Harry stood and analyzed his situation, thinking hard. Slowly but surely, the answer slowly dawned to him. Since they were all liars, whoever was supporting the other was helping build on their lie. This ruled out the red, yellow, and white portraits, since the white one initially lied and red and yellow were supporters. Only green, orange, and blue remained. He quickly concluded that green must have been lying because blue was backing him up, leaving orange as the only truth-speaker.

Following orange's instructions, he entered the room with the statue. Standing directly in front of it, he went right four steps and up two steps. There was a loose tile there, which he decided to pick up. On the bottom of the tile, there was a single number on its surface: 4. With this number, he could solve the puzzle!

The moment he read the number, he heard the sound of glass breaking, a large commotion in the other room. He was quite sure that he heard the sound of blades slashing flesh and a short, high pitched scream. Quickly, he returned to the other room that held the portraits.

All of the portraits had changed. All of the portraits, except orange, were holding weapons smeared with red crimson paint. The orange one was smashed into pieces, red paint dripping down from its canvas, like blood. The text inscribed under each one except the orange one had also changed, "Liar!" the text screamed.

The orange one's description was blotted out with the red paint.

Shuddering, Harry ran out and hurried over to the door that required a password. 18 x 9 + 4 = ? He figured, adding the numbers into their correct positions. Focusing on the equation, he began to write the equation out on his hand. Tracing out the multiplication, 18 x 9 =...162. Add 4 to it and that's 166! He entered the code in and a faint clicking sound of a door unlocking came back. He took a deep breath and entered.

Inside the room was a bunch of tree sculptures. A lone apple laid on one of them. Harry reached out and took the wooden apple. His thoughts traced back to the lips. Maybe it was hungry...?

As he walked back through the narrow hallway, another black hand reached out and tried to grab a hold of him. Startled as he did not expect another one of them, he dodged the hand and hurried to the red lips.

As Harry approached, the lips began to speak. "Hungry... Give food... That food... Give it to me..."

Not seeing anything else he could really do with the apple, he placed it into the opened mouth. As soon as the apple was placed, the lips began to move causing crunching noises to resound throughout the room. Soon the lips had finished eating the apple.

"This tasty... I let you pass now... Go through my mouth..."

The jaw stretched out long enough for him to fit inside. Hesitating at first, He eventually went inside.

The next room was filled with paintings of a guillotine. Walking down the hallway, he counted how many paintings of the same guillotine there were. There were a total of six. The first five were of the guillotine slowly ascending and by the sixth painting it was completely out of sight. For some strange reason, a feeling of uneasiness overcame him. He felt that something bad was going to happen. Making an insane assumption, Harry ran forward to the end of the hall then ran quickly back.

A humongous blade of a guillotine slid down quickly and smashed into the floor, the sound of thudding echoed around the room. The guillotine slowly ascended back up by a long red rope, leaving only a large crack in the ground from where it had fallen, the location that he would have been if he had not moved back. He had almost been killed, split in half by a guillotine.

Shuddering at the thought, Harry moved out of the hallway, carefully walking over the large crack, and down a staircase.

Moving along he noticed that the hallway was red. When he got to the end of the hall, he saw a fleeting shadow glide by. Gathering his courage, he pressed on. There was a painting of a white bird blowing into what appeared to be a horn, resulting in a pink gust of air. This painting was titled as "Breath". Harry continued on down the narrow corridor and was met by a red door at the end. Bracing himself for whatever resided behind the door, he opened the door.

Harry came to a sculpture of a blue women immediately as he entered the room. The sculpture resembled one of the sculptures he had seen before the gallery had begun to turn into whatever it was now. Strangely enough, the name of it was "Uh". On the other side of the room was another sculpture of the exact same women, the only difference was that it was colored red instead of blue. This sculpture was called "Ah". Looking closely however, he could make out slight differences in their facial expressions.

"How... Odd." Harry muttered to himself.

In between the two sculptures was a painting, however he couldn't read the first word. "? Pattern", Harry thought the painting looked very... messy.

Above "Uh" was two other paintings. One was a portrait of what looked to be a man in a suit smoking. It was called "Smoking ?". Harry sighed in frustration. Why were there so many words he didn't know?

The other painting was called "Heartbeat". It was just a simple green line against a black background. However, when he approached the painting, it made a wavy move and a beating sound, as if it was alive.

Above "Ah" was another two paintings. One painting, "Heart Wounds", looked like an arrow piercing the shadow of a realistic looking heart... The other painting was familiar to Harry; he had seen it in the gallery. It was the same painting that brought chills down his spine and made him want to run away in fear. This painting was titled "The Lady in Red".

Harry turned away from the painting and had only taken four steps forward when a loud sound came from behind him. Turning back around, Harry watched as the lady suddenly burst from the wall, crawling at him with her picture frame still intact. She roared and shrieked at him as she clawed her way forward.

Harry's legs shook in fear as he took a few steps back, the lady just clawed her way forward and reached out trying to scratch him with her long deadly claws. Snapping back to reality, he backed away from the now crawling painting. He didn't know what to do.

He ran.

Harry ran away from the painting, causing the lady to roar in rage. He dodged her advances and ran to the door.

It was locked.

"Bloody hell!" Harry exclaimed, he didn't know what to do; a crazy painting was after him and he needed to get past that door. Running again, He searched for something that could help him. His eyes landed on a red key. Harry dashed forward and scooped the key up, dodged a swipe from the Lady in Red, and sprinted to the locked door. He slid the key in and turned, a clicking sound of a door unlocking met his ears. Swinging the door open, he all but flew into the room before slamming the door shut behind him.

Going up to the next door, he tried to turn the doorknob. Locked. Again. Harry, still panting from the adrenaline, listened as a pounding sound on the door behind him resounded around the room. He stiffened. The lady was banging on the door to get in, screaming loudly. Any sense of security that he once had faded away as he realized that he would be trapped in the tiny room he was in if the lady were to come in. Harry began frantically searching the bookcases within the room for a key, or something, anything that would get him out of the room!

He came upon a book, "The Girls in the Canvas", Harry thought that it would be helpful if he learned something about the paintings, it certainly couldn't do any harm now could it?

"The women here become very ? once they ? a desire for humans. They'll always ? chase things until their satisfied, it seems... Anywhere, everywhere, to the ends of the earth..." The fact that he couldn't read some of the words coupled with this new found knowledge made him fall deeper into despair. However, at that moment Harry noticed something odd. There was no more banging on the door. He continued reading, "But they have one weakness, it's that they can't open doors on their own." Harry sighed in relief. It seemed that the Lady in Red couldn't open doors, and that could work well to his advantage.

Harry continued looking through the books, hoping that something in them could be helpful. He pulled out a book, not looking at its cover, and opened it to a random page. A slip of paper fell out of the book and onto the floor. Confused, he picked the slip of paper up and read what was written upon it. " N", it asked.

"Yes, I am having SO much fun right now!" Harry growled out sarcastically in response. He hated this twisted place already and he could tell that it was just going to get worse the farther he got. Sighing, he put the book back and continued searching. In his search he pulled out another book, "Moving Storybook: Written/Drawn by XXXX -Carrie Careless and the Galette des Rois-" The book was much different from all the other books, this book being drawn entirely out of crayon. Sighing in frustration, Harry pushed the book back in. He needed to find a way out not read silly story books!

As Harry pushed the book back in he noticed another book sticking out. Harry decided to push it back in as well. As he did so, he heard a clicking sound come from the door. The door had become unlocked. Standing up from his position on the floor, he pulled himself up, took a deep breath, and went through.

On the other side, he could still hear the lady crawling around. She was relentlessly going to pursue him... He moved on up and saw a picture of a turquoise vase. It was titled, "Eternal Blessings". Underneath the picture was the vase itself. He pulled out his rose and glanced down, only three petals were left. Confused, he looked down at himself and noticed a large scratch going across his leg. Blinking, he realized that he most have gotten scratched by the Lady in Red while he was running, he hadn't even noticed. He sighed, he really was too use to pain if he hadn't even noticed another injury. He slid the rose into the vase and watched as the rose suddenly sprang to life, four more petals grew and he felt his injuries heal. His rose now held seven white petals. Harry began to look at where his injuries once were and was shocked. All of his injuries were healed, even a few of his past injuries that he had received from his relatives.

Harry felt a lot more confident in his exploration of the terrible world he was trapped in, now he knew that there was still some hope of him escaping after all.

From the turquoise vase, he moved right. In the next room he saw a painting... and someone lying on the floor!

The painting was "? Art", yet another word he did not know. More importantly, was the guy lying on the ground. Harry had seen this guy before! He was the purple-haired teen that had been looking at the "Hanged Man" in the gallery before. Harry ran to the teen's side and called out to the guy.

"...Ugh..." was the only reply. The teen sounded to be in great pain.

Harry's people-saving-thing kicked into gear. He wasn't going to let someone lay on the ground in pain, dying. Harry noticed all of the wounds covering the teen's body and the teen was bleeding profusely. Harry looked around for something he could do or use to help the teen. In the corner of his eye, he spotted something. The teen was gripping something shiny in his hand; a key.

"I'm sorry..." Harry muttered to the teen before he reached out and took the key.

"I'll come back," he declared before rushing out of the room and into the room that was behind the teen.

As he ran, he passed another of those smiley face paintings with the tongue hanging out. Thankfully, it didn't spit at him.

In the next room, there was a headless statue in front of a red door. The statue did not move to attack him, however. It just stood there, motionless. The statue proved to be too heavy to move so he backtracked. As he went back, he passed the teen who was in agony.

"I'm sorry I can't do anything to help you..." It pained Harry to see someone like this, in so much pain. Harry wanted - no - NEEDED to help this teen.

Harry ran forward, a new determination pumped though his veins, he was going to help this teen even if it was the last thing he did.

He returned to the room with the vase. Running, he went past the vase and entered the next room.

The next room, he noticed familiar notices posted on the wall near an empty vase. "When the rose withers, so too will you wither away." "You and the rose are ? Know the weight of your own life." Even though he didn't understand one of the words, he understood what the notices implied.

Could... Could that teen back there have lost his rose? Is that why he is weak and dying?

As he walked on, he noticed blue petals on the ground. Those petals were not his... Harry realized that those petals must have belonged to the teen. But, who or what could have done this? He went on, following the petals. He eventually reached the end of the hall, the petals leading to a puddle of blood and a missing portrait. The plaque read, "The Lady in Blue".

Harry's mind went blank. His body began to shake as fear started to crawl into the depths of his psyche. There was another woman crawling around on the floor. And she actually took down someone older than him. But... where was she now?

Looking around the room, he noticed a door and a window. He also noticed that the blue rose petals led from the wall to the door. Unfortunately, he couldn't see through the window and his only choice left was to use the teen's key to unlock the door and to go inside. His curiosity got the best of him so he slid the key into the lock and turned, the door clicked to signal that it was now unlocked.

With the courage of a Gryffindor, he opened the door and entered.

As soon as he entered he heard the sound of someone noisily rummaging through something, muttering unintelligible things to themselves. 'This is no doubt the lady,' He thought to himself. He crept forward and tried to get a better view.

As he approached, the noises stopped. Harry sensed that the lady was looking right at him. Quickly, he noiselessly took a few steps back. After a few seconds of silence, the noises returned.

He couldn't do this, he was going to die if he tried to do anything. He wanted to leave, to run away from there.

'If you run away, that guy will die!' His mind screamed at him. 'If you and that guy switched places, would he have saved you?'

Acting braver than he felt, he ran out from his hiding spot and saw her. The Lady in Blue.

Instantly, she lunged at him and shrieked. She tried to grab, bite, and scratch him. But Harry was too fast. He dodged her advances and searched desperately for the teen's rose. There, he saw it. A blue rose. Quickly, he plucked the rose from the ground and ran from the room, fear and adrenaline pumping through him.

As he left the room, he breathed a sigh of relief. A silly grin came upon his face. He had done it! He had gotten the teen's rose back! He won! The woman lost!

"Ahahaha..." He laughed softly, still panting.

Then, suddenly, a loud crash came from behind him. The sound of glass shattering rang out through the air. The woman had broken through the window. How could he have been so stupid! He had somehow forgotten about the window!

The lady resumed her pursuit and Harry glided out of the room, slamming the door shut behind him. Panting once again, he walked over to "Eternal Blessings" and placed the blue rose into the vase. It was instantly replenished and brand new.

Harry found captivated by the rose. It was beautiful. The rose was a shade of royal blue and seemed to practically glow in the light. Small dew drops on the petals reflected the light, a fresh earthly smell coming off it.

Shaking himself back to reality, Harry rushed back to the teen to see how he was doing.

Walking over to the teen, Harry crouched down and held out the blue rose. The teen only replied with a weak "...Mmm..." However, the teen eventually lifted his head up. Now that the teen was looking up, Harry could clearly make out the attractive face of a young male. The teen had lavender colored hair with a few darker streaks, his bangs were covering his left eye.

"What's this? The pain's gone...ah?" The older teen muttered.

Looking up, the teen's eyes met Harry's. Sapphire-blue met emerald-green.

Blinking, the teen looked at the blue rose being held out to him, then back to Harry. He looked back down before reaching out a hand to take the offered rose. The teen's fingers brushed Harry's as he carefully took the rose.

Harry's heart seemed to quicken as their fingers brushed, he could only watch as the teen pulled himself up, sliding the rose into his pocket. The teen looked down at Harry.

"Could you be... perhaps someone from the gallery?" The teen asked Harry curiously.

Harry nodded, unable to speak.

"So you are! Oh thank heavens!" the teen exclaimed, relieved. "There's someone here besides me!" Then the teen looked at Harry and extended his hand. "Here, I'll help you up."

Shocked at the gesture, Harry slowly placed his hand into the teen's larger one.

"Thanks..."

Smiling kindly, the teen pulled Harry back onto his feet. "No problem. So do you possibly know how this happened?"

For the next few minutes, Harry and the elder teen exchanged stories on how they had turned up where they were now. "So I see... You don't have any clue how things got to this point, either. It would seem we wound up in very similar situations..." The teen said, pulling his beautiful blue rose from the pocket of his tattered coat and stared at it.

"Even down to these roses. Wounds appear on me when my rose loses its petals... I thought I was a goner there... Thank you for getting it back," He quietly spoke as he turned to Harry, his eyes shining with sincere gratitude.

"...Now first things first... We'd better find a way out," He declared. He gave a tired look. "I think I'll go mad if I stay in this dreadful place for too long..."

"Ah, I still haven't asked your name. My, that was rude of me!" The teen exclaimed, cheeks dusted pink in embarrassment. "Well, my name's Garry. And you are?" The teen inquired.

"I'm Harry..." He replied softly, still not used to having someone talk to him and be so kind to him before. He knew that he should be used to it, after all, at Hogwarts and in the wizarding world everyone was so kind to him. Being at the Dursley's for so long, he wasn't prepared for someone to be so nice to him.

"Harry... Harry you say," Garry said to himself, seemingly testing out the name. Garry walked a few steps forward. "I can't very well leave a young boy as yourself wander into danger, no, no. ...So I'll go with you! Okay?"

He turned to face Harry with a new found confidence. "Now, let's go, Harry!"

A true smile found its way onto Harry's face. Although he just met Garry, he felt more safe and confident with the elder teen by his side. Garry seemed very kind and he found the older teen very easy to like. Harry didn't even mind that Garry had called him young even though he was a teenager and probably was only a few years younger than the older teen himself. Harry walked over to Garry's side.

"Yeah! Let's go." He replied, looking up at Garry, green eyes glowing with happiness.

Both teens looked at each other and took a step forward, prepared for whatever the twisted world threw at them... Or maybe not.

As they took a step forward, the silly painting spat at them. Harry himself was not really surprised, Garry on the other hand was.

"HYEEEK!" Garry screamed, falling onto his back, eyes wide. Although he would never admit it, Harry giggled at the reaction and watched as Garry quickly scrambled back to his feet, face red with embarrassment.

"... I... I was just a bit startled! R-Really, that's all it was!" He said as he tried to explain himself. Harry just walked over and patted Garry on the shoulder, still giggling to himself.

"Anywayyy... Let's keep going, and watch out for such bizarre things as that!" Garry said, dismissing his fear.

"Come along then, mate. We need to get out of this crazy place."

"Right. Let's get out of here, Harry."

Both teens entered the next room. The headless mannequin was still there, blocking the door. Garry stepped to the side of it, preparing his muscles.

"What a lousy place for this thing..." He grumbled. "Step back a tad, would you, Harry?"

Nodding, Harry stepped out of the way and watched as Garry extended his arms.

"And... Heave!" Garry pushed the statue so that it was no longer obstructing their path.

"Ta-dah!" He said with a flourish and a bow.

"Wow, you're quite strong, Garry." Harry complemented, eyes bright with a bit of awe. He hadn't expected Garry to be able to move the mannequin so easily.

"Not really, I guess I'm strong enough to be proficient, though." Garry replied, scratching his cheek in slight embarrassment at the praise.

"Nonsense! I would have never been able to even nudge that thing. It probably weighs over eighty pounds!"

"Well... We shall test that thought! Next time we come across a mannequin that needs to be moved, you'll move it."

"What?! Never!" Harry exclaimed, running out the door.

Chuckling, Garry ran out after Harry.

"We'll see about that!"

...

Neither teen noticed the baby-blue eyes watching them from a distance, eyes following Harry, a small smile upon the beings lips.

"We will get out of here together. I will become real, taking the place of the other, and we will be best friends forever..."

The being clutched the fake yellow rose in its hand as the being spoke, loneliness evident in its voice as well as a slight possessiveness...

...