Chapter 14 – Red, White, and Weiss
AN:
Oni: I'M BACK!
Seb: About time, we were starting to get worried.
Oni: I know, I know! But it's done! Be happy! Even if it's a bit on the short side... oh well I'll just make the next one longer! You guys just enjoy this chapter!
Garry: Yes yes, watch me suffer….
Mary: And watch me be a decent, non-evil character!
Harry: And watch me… well… be angsty!
Oni: And the disclaimer -
I am not Kouri
Nor am I Lindsey
Nor am I good old J.K
First ten chapters, not mine
But everything else is just fine
So enjoy the chapter, okay?
After the small flight of stairs, Harry saw another painting similar to the one on the higher floor, only this time there was a pink frame with a purple lizard whose head was facing up. After glancing at the new painting, Harry saw what he was looking for, a purple door. However this time it had an extra handle. 'Now what does THAT do, I wonder?' he thought.
"I think this lets us unlock the door from this side…" Mary said. 'Do we have anything to lose?' the teen thought to himself before turning the new, smaller handle. The door made a click, the sound that could only previously have been made with the turn of a key or the completion of a puzzle. 'Good to know that something worked as it should for once.' The boy thought sarcastically before turning the doorknob.
Harry immediately knew something was dreadfully wrong as soon as he stepped into the large room that hopefully housed his separated friend. The temperature seemed to drop a couple degrees and for the first time in the gallery Harry felt himself shiver from the cold. A foreboding aura cloaked the air, and the boy-who-lived felt his chest tighten. When he looked over to see how Mary was doing with this sudden change in atmosphere, Harry was surprised to that the younger girl appeared to be unaffected.
"Mary, aren't you cold at all?" The small blond girl looked at him strangely.
"No, why would I?" A bit confused, Harry shook his head in a dismissing manner.
"No reason, just asking." Mary slowly nodded before smiling brightly.
"Ok then!"
Turning right, the duo walked in complete silence until they just passed a painting title 'Worry'. That's when Harry heard something echo around the room.
"…that….. so? …heehee….."
A chill ran down Harry's spine. The voice sounded light, fluttery, and not in a good way. It reminded him of Lockhart's voice when he accidentally obliviated himself. Shaking his head to clear away the memory, Harry took a couple of steps forward before the voice rang out again.
"…Ahahaha…. Oh, sure. Sometimes…. Yeah, yeah….."
"I hear someone talking…" Mary whispered to him from behind, her face betraying her worry.
"Me too, but we have to push on… Garry might be in trouble…" The thirteen year old wizard replied.
As he rounded the bend, Harry heard the voice again, the familiarity of it nagging at his mind.
"…Don't see that every day, right? I just ran out, you see…"
'Where did I hear that voice before, it couldn't have been long…' The boy wondered to himself.
"Oh, I really love it. But it takes a while for sure…" All the blood drained from Harry's face as recognition dawned on him. 'Garry, that's Garry's voice…' he thought, horrified. He walked slowly, mechanically, before he realized that he was standing near a door that was half open, with a chilling wind that was even colder than the already freezing room spilling out of it.
"Oh, you too? Why, we certainly do get along, don't we? Ohohoho…" Harry's muscles tensed when he heard the voice of his friend again, but this time he swore that he heard a very faint, hoarse whispering that was coming from the door as well.
Slowly, Harry crept towards the open door, shivering a little as he got closer to the door. Peering into the room, he saw a familiar mop of purple hair.
"Garry is behind the door…" he whispered to his companion.
"Is he… talking to someone?" she whispered back.
"Looks like it from here… I wonder who he's talking to…" 'Well,' the emerald eyed boy thought, 'we won't know until we go inside…' And with that thought, Harry cautiously walked into the room where his friend was hopefully waiting inside.
Owls.
Lots of owls.
That was the first thing that Harry registered when he walked into the seemingly below freezing room.
Small pink and white owls were scattered everywhere: on the floor, on the desks, heck, there was that one painting of that pink rabbit… ''Red Eyes', wasn't it?' Harry thought. However, the most defining part of the room must have been the absurd scene of his purple haired comrade sitting on the floor in the middle of the room, talking to a lone light green owl. His face, though relaxed, was carefree. 'A little too carefree…' the raven haired teen thought darkly to himself.
"…..Garry…?" Mary asked, shock and worry written clearly on her face.
"Hoho! You're really quite entertaining, you know that? I feel like I could talk to you about my every worry… Ahahahaha….." the teen in the torn coat told the owl with a light voice.
The way Garry sat on the floor was all too familiar to what had happened just a couple of months before, and before he knew it, Harry was dragged into his tormenting memory by the hoarse whispering that had gotten louder without the younger boy knowing.
"The adventure ends here, boys!" he said. "I shall take a bit of this skin back up to the school, tell them I was too late to save the girl, and that you two tragically lost your minds at the sight of her mangled body - say good-bye to your memories!"
He raised Ron's Spellotaped wand high over his head and yelled,
"Obliviate!"
The wand exploded with the force of a small bomb. Harry flung his arms over his head and ran, slipping over the coils of snake skin, out of the way of great chunks of tunnel ceiling that were thundering to the floor. Next moment, he was standing alone, gazing at a solid wall of broken rock.
He remembers how after the events between the Basilisk and Tom Riddle, he gets back to Ron in the now debris filled chamber.
"Where's Lockhart?"
"Back there," said Ron, still looking puzzled but jerking his head up the tunnel toward the pipe. "He's in a bad way. Come and see."
Led by Fawkes, whose wide scarlet wings emitted a soft golden glow in the darkness, they walked all the way back to the mouth of the pipe.
Gilderoy Lockhart was sitting there, humming placidly to himself.
"His memory's gone," said Ron. "The Memory Charm backfired. Hit him instead of us. Hasn't got a clue who he is, or where he is, or who we are. I told him to come and wait here. He's a danger to himself"
Lockhart peered good-naturedly up at them all.
"Hello," he said. "Odd sort of place, this, isn't it? Do you live here?"
Harry remembered not caring back then. After all, that was Lockhart. The git deserved it.
But now, now he looked on at his friend who was displaying the same traits as his old Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, and he was afraid. Harry stared at the blabbering Garry in absolute horror, and unknowingly, Mary was mirroring the boy's face of disbelief as well.
She stood near frozen, staring at the teen in front of her, trying to understand WHAT exactly was is that Dolls were trying to achieve. She knew that they had a crush on Garry, 'but this is ridiculous!' she finished in her head. Yes, Mary was worried that Garry might not like her after he discovered her secret, and yes she knew that it would be Garry that she would sacrifice to go to the outside world, but there was no reason to go and brainwash him!
"Huh! Never heard that before… Can you give me the details?" Came the light-hearted voice of the teen in question that broke her out of her short reverie.
"No, no, I won't tell anyone! Your secret's safe with me!" Garry paused after saying this, and leaned closer to the stuffed doll, as if to show that he was listening intently to whatever the doll had to say.
"Whaaa? I don't believe it! Really? Are you for real?" Jerking back in shock, Garry's face of disbelief now matched Mary's.
"'Cause that's disgusting! Who'd do that to a girl?" 'Oh,' Mary thought to herself, 'THAT story…' She shook her head in exasperation.
"If I saw that happening, I'd tell them off for sure!" 'Yes Garry, yes you would…' Mary trailed of before catching herself. She could not afford to get attached to him, he was her only ticket out of this place now. Internally, she grimaced, she hated feeling so…
"Troubled? I know the feeling. You just feel helpless sometimes." The blond girl snapped her head to Garry so fast she almost got whiplash.
"You know you can't run away, but nothing goes well either….. wonder why?" Unbeknowest to every human occupant in the room, every single one of them felt sad. Garry sighed, and both Harry and Mary glanced at each other, slightly worried. 'Don't get too attached, don't get too attached…' Mary chanted in her head. 'At least he seems more normal now, but he's still unresponsive…' Harry thought.
"…Yeah, that works too. It's nice to not have to think… Just forgetting the bad things… Ahaha, oh yes! I'm with you there!" Harry stared at his purple-haired companion with helpless agony.
"He keeps talking to himself…" the boy whispered quietly, only enough for Mary to hear. 'Oh Harry, if only you knew,' she thought, but she was then struck by a sudden idea, 'what if he's a fake? Maybe the REAL Garry is hidden away…'
"…Is this really Garry? Something's wrong with him… Maybe it's a fake? I mean, the real Garry wouldn't be here… right?" She tilted her head to the side in a thoughtful pose. Harry just stared at the teen.
"Don't you think so, Harry…? The boy in question still stared at his friend in silent agony. 'Why is he like that, it's like he's asleep. The lights are definitely on, but no one's home…'
"….Harry?" Mary asked, but her words fell on deaf ears as Harry was lost to his thoughts. '…How do you wake someone up?' His memories provided him with the Dursleys slapping him awake when he was young, before he learnt to wake up early. 'Yes,' he thought, 'that just might work!' With that thought Harry looked up, pure determination shining in his eyes.
Slowly at first, Harry walked towards the blabbering form of his friend. Positioning himself right in front of the purple-haired teen, he raised his hand.
"I hope you can forgive me for this…" Harry whispered before bringing his hand down onto Garry's left cheek.
Red.
When he first fainted from that horribly cold room, all he could see was that blasted shade of red.
White.
Now though, all he could see was a vast amount of white. Pure as snow, poetically speaking. Garry looked around, noting that yes, he was most definitely floating in some space made of white…whatever it is. 'How very, very cliché.' He thought. He tried to stand up, tried to make sense of what was up and what was down. After flailing around the expanse of white nothingness, he finally gave up and let himself float off too wherever, his mind too muddled to do anything more.
Then, all of a sudden, something gave way and Garry was unceremoniously dropped onto his back on a floor of some sort, but who could tell? Everything was still undeniably white. 'Gah, I will go mad if I stay in this place, what do I have to do to get some semblance of reality around here?' he thought to himself, and just like that, the whiteness melted away to reveal a bedroom of sorts.
Its walls were a light blue, and the floor was covered with a darker blue carpet. A mahogany desk lay to one side of the room, filled with paper and art supplies. An easel and a dressing mannequin with an elegant blue dress stood next to it, with various fabrics draped neatly along the back wall. A bed sat on the other end of the room, with a lilac canopy. Its sheets and pillows were a dark blue, but it was draped with a teal quilt. All in all, a too familiar sight for the purple-haired teen.
"….Wait. Why did this turn into my room?" Garry asked out loud.
"And a very nice room it is, if I may say so myself." A voice stated. Garry turned his head to see where the voice was emanating from, only to find an older version of himself sitting on his bed.
The 'Other Garry' was slightly taller, and seemed to be in his mid-thirties. His hair was longer, tied in a low ponytail that reached to his mid-back. He was dressed in a dark blue cloak with a light green longsleeve. He was smiling at Garry, twirling a wand in his hand.
"…What?" was all Garry could manage. Other Garry chuckled.
"Ah, of course, I never introduced myself." He told the younger, before leaning closer and whispering, "Do you know who I am?"
"…Me?" Garry asked, perplexed. The Other Garry seemed to smile wider at that.
"In a sense, yes. You are me and I am you. But in another way you are merely a part of me, yet also me entirely, which has lead a life outside of the Gallery walls."
"…..What?" was all Garry could, yet again, manage. The Other Garry gracefully stood up from the bed.
"Allow me to formally introduce myself, I am Weiss Guertena."
Weiss.
"That…. Explains a whole lot and nothing at all at the same time." Was Garry's reply.
"…..What?" was all Weiss could manage, feeling a sense of déjà vu. Garry, despite himself, chuckled.
"Okay I can definitely see how we are the same person, but how?" Weiss smiled.
"Simple really. Have you ever heard of a Horcrux?"
OMAKE: What happens if Weiss questions Garry's lifestyle
Its walls were a light blue, and the floor was covered with a darker blue carpet. A mahogany desk lay to one side of the room, filled with paper and art supplies. An easel and a dressing mannequin with an elegant blue dress stood next to it, with various fabrics draped neatly along the back wall. A bed sat on the other end of the room, with a lilac canopy. Its sheets and pillows were a dark blue, but it was draped with a teal quilt. All in all, a too familiar sight for the purple-haired teen.
"….Wait. Why did this turn into my room?" Garry asked out loud.
"This… is your room?" A voice stated. Garry turned his head to see where the voice was emanating from, only to find an older version of himself sitting on his bed. The 'Other Garry' seemed to be staring intently at the blue dress on the dressing mannequin.
"Yes….?" Garry replied, perplexed.
"Then why is there a dress in your room? Hell, why is your room so….?"
"Girly? I get that a lot. But I like it this way." The Other Garry looked at the teen strangely.
"I see… I am Weiss Guertena."
"Okay…"
"And I am here to question you on your life choices."
"What?"
"I refuse to believe that my reincarnation takes such joy from," Weiss shuddered, "LIGHT colors."
"Ah, no the light colors on the bed are my house colors."
"And the DRESS?"
"Hey!" Garry defended, "My life, my choice! If I want to dress like a girl, who's to say no? If I want to dress like a guy, what's stopping me? If I was to take in a boy from an orphanage and make him my brother, who's to say I'm wrong? If my friends and I become the most notorious pranksters in the school, what's going to say I can't? If I want to break the fourth wa-"
"The what?"
"Oh great he's rubbing off on me…." Garry deadpanned. In the distance, two near identical cackles could be heard.
"Seb, no!" Garry yelled.
"PRINCE!" Weiss bellowed.
The cackles continued.
A/N:
Oni: Another chapter done! I'll see you next time, my pretties!