Chapter 9 - Search

AN:

Oni: Okay this is when some more detail come to light that I have put in, PRETTY sure most of you will get the hint of these little tidbits. Anyway, I do not own Harry Potter or Ib or this story up to chapter ten. I do own some details of said story that I have put in.

The room was pretty cramped. Boxes were scattered everywhere around the room as well as several statues, but they didn't move. When Mary and he investigated a statue, Mary commented on its strength. "Looks like this would break if you hit it..." she noted. She tried moving it but gave up. "... Way too heavy to move, though."

The next thing they did was search through the boxes. One of them was filled with yellowed paper, another with various kind of paint, yet another filled with worn paintbrushes.

Walking throughout the room, Mary saw a stool and sat down on it, looking a little exhausted. 'I guess she's pretty tired,' Harry thought.

"I'd like to take this stool, but..." she started. She lifted herself off the stool and grabbed it. She tugged as hard as she could, but it didn't even budge. "It looks like it's stuck to the ground." She shrugged her shoulders and they moved on.

There was an easel with a sketch of some strange drawing on the canvas. Neither of them could make out what it was. Mary went over to one of the boxes in the back of the room. "Hmm... Is there anything useful in here?" She muttered, searching through the box. "... Ah!" Mary exclaimed, pulling an object from the box. It was a small palette knife.

She turned to Harry and asked, "Maybe this can cut the vines?!"

"I don't think it could. Those vines are made of stone after all, I doubt a palette knife could cut through them." Harry told the girl.

"You're right... Nah, it wouldn't work..." She said. She looked at the palette knife she was clutching in her hand. She stared at it. "But I think I'll hold on to this..."

She turned to him and in a mysterious manner said, "You know, just in case..." Harry felt a little weirded out, but if it made Mary feel safer, he'd put up with it. Although, he wondered if he was doing the right thing by allowing her to keep the knife. Sure, it was a small, flimsy knife, but it was still a knife. He mentally shook his head and put his thoughts aside. He could think matters through more deeply at a later time.

They continued searching through countless boxes, but found nothing they could use, other than the palette knife, of course. "Hmm... I don't really see anything useful. Should we go back to Garry for now?" Mary asked him. As Harry opened his mouth to respond, the lights flickered. "Wahhh! Huh?!" yelled Mary.

The lights flickered on and off again, and then stopped. "That scared me..." Mary whined, gripping onto Harry's arm. The lights flickering didn't really scare Harry, he was used to it by now. What actually bothered him was the statue that they had seen when they first came in had now moved and blocked the exit.

"Mary... The exit's blocked..." Harry slowly said.

"Huh? The exit... Wh-When did that move? Wasn't it just against the wall?" With a scared tone in her voice, she commanded, "Move it, Harry!"

They walked over to the statue and got ready to move it. "Ready? Heeeave...!" Even with their combined strength, the statue was still too heavy for them to move. Panting, Mary turned to him and said, "... no good... It won't even budge..." 'Why do things like this always have to happen to me?' Harry thought. 'First I'm forced to confront the man who killed my parents in first year! Then, in second year, I'm forced to fight a bloody basilisk. And now this! Will I ever get a break?!'

"What do we do, Harry...? We can't get out..." asked Mary.

"Well I guess the best thing we can do would be to look for clues or something..." He told her. With that, the two of them began searching through more boxes. When he checked out the box with yellowing paper, it was wet for some strange reason, the box with the various art tools smelled moldy, and even the box with the brushes was different; the brushes were made of real hair. When he checked the last box filled with paint, he discovered that the red paint was gone.

Having done as much as they could in this room, the duo was ready to leave. "Not much we can do but go this way, Harry!" Mary said, pointing at the unblocked door in front of them. They headed through.

The lights were already flickering on and off in the new hallway they were in. A steady rhythm of light and darkness. As they walked up, they heard something falling. It sounded like it was slowly rolling down some steps. Then there was a sound of something splattering.

They moved upward and saw two windows. A shadow of someone walked by the windows. The two of them tried to look through and see who it was, but whoever it was had left. As they walked away, whoever it was came back and banged on the window. This was enough to get them moving out of there.

At the end of the second set of stairs, there was something red splattered on the ground. They walked up another set of stairs. Waiting for them at the end was a single painting. It was "Clown". The painting appeared to be the face of a clown, accessorized with white makeup and a small tear.

Walking down the final path, they heard a splattering sound on the wall. Looking back, there were four messages on the wall written in brown paint.

I want you to have fun, Harry.

Come to a fun world where no one will ever harm you.

We'll be together, forever.

Just you, me, and our friends.

"Wha... What?!" Harry exclaimed, startled by the messages. "Who keeps writing these messages?" Mary simply shrugged in response before reaching out her hand. She took a hold of his hand and squeezed it in reassurance. Her hand was freezing cold, so very cold.

In silence, the two of them looked at each other and went through the next door. In the next room, there was a large gap in the floor. They couldn't cross it. On the other side were a box and a weird pentagon shaped object. Looking at the wall, there were five cords. A blinking green painting was under the fourth cord. Near where they came in was a blue rose drawing on the floor. They went over to it and sat down to think for a while. "I wonder what Garry's doing? We kind of left him behind..." Mary whispered. Harry sighed. "I wonder too..."

Garry was getting tired of waiting by the stone vines. He tapped his foot impatiently. "..." It was so quiet.

"...They're taking their time... I wonder if something happened?" he muttered. He walked around the vines and began to shout, "Harry! Mary! Can you hear me?!"

No response.

"No good..." he said, bringing his palm to his face. "Argh, I knew I shouldn't have let them go alone...! what to do..."

Garry tried to move the vines again. After all he had done so many times in the past, so why didn't it work now? He groaned, frustrated. Even if Harry and Mary had gone and he wouldn't get found out, he still couldn't move the vines. In fact, his lighter hadn't budged from its form either. There was something incredibly horrid about this Gallery, and this was just one of the many things that barred him from helping out his friends to out of this Mer- god forsaken place.

Garry looked around. The only place left to go was that god awful room. "... I suppose I'll investigate that room again. … As much as I hate to go back in there..."

He readied himself to re-enter the disturbing room full of dolls. He braced himself for the eerie sensation of being watched by those THINGS. He hesitantly entered.

The room still haunted him. Garry looked on at the disturbing dolls, each with tangled masses of black hair, piercing red eyes, disgusting blue skin, and demented smiles. There were dolls hanging by their necks from the ceiling... Garry shuddered as he looked at them.

He averted his eyes from the small dolls and looked at "Red Eyes". It was the most disturbing painting yet. The magnified face of a doll. Garry could feel it watching his every move. How could the others find this room as "CUTE"?

Looking away from "Red Eyes", he told himself, "... No matter how I look at it, this is NOT 'cute'."

Nothing seemed different from when he was last in there. Garry went to the left bookshelf and scanned the books. He pulled out one titled, "Ruin of the Heart". "If your spirit suffers too much, you will soon start to hallucinate... And in the end, you will be destroyed. And more worrying yet... Is that you won't even be conscious of that fact."

"Hallucinations? … Maybe Harry and Mary were hallucinating then... I doubt either of them would find these THINGS as 'cute'. I wonder what they saw, after all, Harry did seem a little hesitant to say they were cute..." Garry pondered. "I'll ask them when I find them... Wherever they are..."

He went over to the bookcase on the right and browsed. Seeing nothing of note, he sighed. "Nothing of note here..." He then noticed something. There was a crack in the wall. "... Hm?" He tried to move the bookcase and it slid as he pushed it. "Ah, it moved! Why didn't I notice that earlier?"

Behind the bookshelf was a small hole in the wall. "Oh, well. I can go out this way."

'I guess there is some merit in visiting this horrid room after all..." Garry thought.

He crouched down and crawled through the small hole. He entered a much larger area. There was a violet message on the wall reading, "There is no exit. There is no reason." What a defeatist notion it was.

"No reason? There is a reason. My reason is that I must get to Harry and Mary before anything bad happens to them." Garry declared to himself. "I have to find a way to them before it's too late."

He walked over to the door adjacent to the message. The door was locked, of course.

Garry explored the room a bit more. There was a black triangular-shaped hole in the ground. He couldn't do anything with it, though. Around the back of the room were five cords. "How mysterious..." Garry murmured.

He decided to pull them from left to right. He pulled the first one. A black arm shot out from the left wall and hit him. "Ow..." He whined, rubbing his side. He pulled out his rose and watched as a single petal drifted down, leaving his rose at only eight petals. "I'll have to find a vase after this..." He mumbled, putting his rose back into his pocket.

Hesitantly, he pulled the second cord. A green mist flowed out from above him and assailed his lungs.

Hacking and coughing, Garry said, "What is this...?! How many more of these cords are going to be detrimental to my heath?!" He pulled out his rose once again and saw that it looked slightly wilted.

He stepped over to the third cord and cautiously gave it a tug. The lights went out. It was pitch black.

"You must be KIDDING me!" Garry yelled out to no one. "It switches off the power?!" Hurriedly, he pulled the rope again. The lights came back on. Garry breathed a sigh in relief. "Whew... Thank goodness... I thought it wouldn't come back..."

Reluctantly, he moved over to the next cord, and pulled it. There was a click and he heard something on the other side fall. He could faintly hear the sound of cheering. 'Maybe pulling this cord helped out Harry and Mary somehow?' Garry wondered.

Not wanting to overstep his boundaries, he refrained from pulling the last cord. Garry could just sense that something bad would happen if he did. There was a drawing of a white rose in the corner on the floor. Spotting it, Garry went over and sat down. He began to plan out his next move.