Chapter 16 – Crayons, Crayons EVERYWHERE
AN:
Oni: UPDAAAAATE WOOOOOO!
Harry: About time!
Garry: You have, like, four fanfics now why would you do this to yourself.
Mary: Why would you do this to USSSS?
Oni: Okay, OKAY, I get it… but plot bunnies call and some are just evil, so now I also have a fic called 'Dimensional Veils and Magical Aliens', of which the Veil is, in fact, a portal to Alternia. Yes, it's a Homestuck/Harry Potter crossover. I am Homestuck trash.
Sebastian: ANYways, Oni does not own Harry Potter or Ib or most of the first ten chapters.
Oni: Enjoy!
The stairway led down, that much was obvious. All they knew was that the walls were replaced by empty space, (Harry saw space like that from one of those astronomy documentaries that he sneak-watched through his cupboard) that only held small white specks of stars traveling left and that the stairway became pink instead of brown. It was like the stairs itself was suspended in space, and while both agreed that this predicament was slightly creepy, they also marveled at the stars.
"That one is Pictorus, the Painter." Garry supplied, pointing to a group of stars.
"So that's what you were named after?" Harry asked, marveling at the many clusters of stars.
"Yes, that's right! Oh look! There's Regulus, otherwise known as 'Little Lion' or 'Little King'." The purple haired teen exclaimed, pointing out another star, "it's part of the Leo constellation." He added.
"Oh, cool. Is there a Regulus in your family then?"
"It's my father's name, Regulus Arcturus Black." Harry turned and pointed at another star, and then another, "there's Arcturus, and there's Sirius."
"Sirius?"
"The Dog Star, he's my uncle. I think he's still in Britain... Father doesn't talk about him much, but when he does... He gets this wistful and faraway look..." Harry chose at this time to ask something he'd been meaning to ask.
"Hey Garry, you said that your dad went to Hogwarts... What House was he in?"
"Ah... I'm trying to remember...oh yes. He was in Slytherin."
Harry's head snapped to Garry so fast that he almost got whiplash. 'In Slytherin? But he doesn't seem to be that bad...' He thought to himself.
"What House was your uncle in then?" Harry instead asked.
"Griffindore."
"Oh, finally! Someone from Griffindore!" The green eyed child exclaimed, pumping a fist into the air, which caused Garry to chuckle at his antics.
They left the conversation at that and instead focused on getting to the bottom of the stairs.
Harry and Garry had to have been treading down the stairs for a good ten minutes, and so by then conversation had flitted from one topic to another. Most of the various topics revolved around Magical America, Magical Britain, and what the bloody hell Harry had missed out on learning in all his years, Hogwarts and Pre-Hogwarts. And what Harry had missed was apparently a lot, and very quickly the Boy Who Lived learnt just how behind the times the British Wizarding World really was. Garry was being a rather good sport about it, not questioning Harry's ignorance on the subjects and filing certain things to ask his father later. At the moment, they were discussing innate magical abilities.
Specifically, Garry's Metamorphmagus abilities.
"So that's why your hair looks like that?"
"Yeah. I can change other parts too, but sometimes the change is unconscious."
"Oh, like your eye."
"My eye?"
"Yeah, it changes color all the time, started to weird me out before you told me that you were a Metamorphwhatsit."
"Metamorphmagus."
"How the bloody hell do wizards even come up with these names?"
"Mainly it's just a combination of roots, really. 'Metamorphosis' means to undergo physical change and 'magus' is the Latin singular for Magi, Magician. See?"
"Wow. Never thought of it that way…"
"Once you start realizing that spoken spells are just bastardized Latin, the easier your casting becomes. Honestly the only reason why spells are in Latin was because that was the common language back in the day verbal spellcasting was formed."
"So you Americans don't use verbal magic anymore?"
"Most children learn to control their innate magic first."
"You keep saying that, what's innate magic."
"Ah yes, Britain files that under 'Dark Magic', which is silly, even though an untrained magician who's mastered their innate magic is very, very dangerous indeed."
"So you Metawhatever abilities is innate magic?"
"Metamorphmagus. And yes, it is. But there are more examples, like Elemental and Beastial magic, not to mention the Technomancers…"
"Elementals? Beastial? Technowhat?"
Garry felt the urge to suppress a really large sigh. Honestly, how bad was the European Wizarding World now?
His thoughts were interrupted by what looked like a white shooting star - poorly drawn with crayon. What made it worse was the fact it was headed for them. Garry's eye went wide and grabbed a surprised Harry by the hand.
"Look out!"
Shwing!
They stumbled down a couple of steps, narrowly avoiding the passing star.
"What the bloody hell was that?!"
"A shooting star, I think."
This statement was backed up when they went down a couple more steps and had to dodge another star, this time drawn with a blue crayon. They looked at each other.
"I don't think these are the end of...whatever we just found." Harry muttered.
"Agreed, best be on our guard for now..." Garry said, sighing. Harry decided to at least take his mind of it a little bit. Talking and being ready to fight was the the Boy Who Lived was best at, after all.
"Still, you didn't answer my question on what an Elemental was..." Garry's face lit up, just like Hermione's did when asked to explain something she was passionate about.
"Elementals are rather self-explanatory. They are people who can manipulate an element. Usually it's just one element, but if you're creative, you can learn to manipulate different forms of an element. For example, a Water Elemental can manipulate no only water, but ice and steam as well. This is the case of my brother, Sebastian, but he has earned the reputation of being an Elemental instead."
"Is he mad?"
"Completely. But sometimes the best people are."
"That's what they say about Dumbledore..."
"Ah, Dumbledore. Father never really liked the man that much, something about being incredibly manipulative and biased..."
"Huh... Now that you mention it, the things he's done seemed to always favor the Griffindores..."
"I wouldn't know, I've never met the... What in the name of botched car heists?"
Garry stopped his answer in mid-sentence, abruptly pausing in walking down the steps as well. Harry realized this and stood there, tilting his head at his friend with an odd look on his face. 'Botched...car heists?' He thought to himself, 'that's one way to cleanly swear.' Harry finished with a small shrug.
"Garry? What's wrong?"
"Look at the stairs..."
"Bloody Hell!"
The pink stairs had started to become just pink scribbles a few steps ahead, the path drawn roughly with a crayon. The crayon path was flat, marking the entrance of a new area. A rather strange new area. Harry stared incredulously at the path. 'And I thought Hogwarts was strange...' Harry thought to himself.
They cautiously stepped onto the crayon path. The 'sky' now had crayon drawings floating around them. A pink heart, a red spiral sun, a purple tulip, a blue star, and a yellow moon were floating in space and, like the shooting stars, looked as if a little child drew them.
"Well this is mildly creepy." Was Garry's frank reply.
They walked a bit farther down, rounding a bend when the crayon path took a sharp right turn. The white specks of stars had disappeared, and were replaced with a crayon drawn yellow moon with red and blue crayon stars. As they moved forward, they dodged a meteor that crashed behind them. What scared them about the blue and orange meteor was the red eyes and red smile.
Oh, and the fact that it was talking.
"He's back, he's back, he's back..." Was all it said over and over as it tried to drop on their heads.
"That's really creepy." Garry supplied.
Pressing on, they dodged a falling blue crayon axe before the sky was once again replaced with giant shooting stars, one orange and the other green. It was a little surprising when they saw the floating blue letters that were obviously drawn by someone very young. Garry carefully approached the letters, and reached out. His hand touched the crayon, but it didn't smear at all. He tried to get a better look, but the path stopped abruptly and some sort of magic was preventing him from straying from the crayon. Harry walked up and read the word depicted.
"Sketchbook?"
"Mary told us to meet her here, she should be close by."
"Well, the arrow points that way, so I guess we shouldn't keep her waiting."
Walking into the next area as the surrounding area slowly crisscrossed into black.
The first that hit them was the cold. The next was the tinkling of bells and the ethereal music that somehow came from everywhere and nowhere at all at the same time.
"Well, now... This is a significant change in the atmosphere..." Garry whispered, "but nothing we can't handle. Let's go, Harry."
Spotting a white crayon house with a red roof and grey chimney, the pair agreed that this would be their first stop. Passing two crayon tulips, Harry paused at one tulip that was little different.
"A tulip bud..." Harry said aloud.
"Why hasn't this one bloomed, I wonder..."
Shrugging to each other, they walked into the crayon house, who's crayon door was unlocked. A table with two chairs was drawn in the centre of the small house, with a large 'painting' of a person with black hair and a red shirt. Garry made a beeline for the bookcase, and skimmed the titles. His face contorted into confusion.
"What? These are all storybooks..."
Harry on the other hand investigated the Cuckoo Clock on the right. It was set at 9 o'clock, and wasn't ticking.
"The clock isn't ticking..."
Exchanging glances from the other end of the room, both males agreed that getting out of the house as soon as possible was a very good idea.
They passed an empty bulletin board and tried the door on a large white building with a green roof and a drawing of a paint pallet.
"Locked...again." Harry grumbled as he kicked the door in anger.
"And so it begins, another round of puzzles await us." Garry said mysteriously, wiggling his fingers.
Harry broke out into a fit of giggles after that.
From there on they went through the strange world that Mary called the 'Sketchbook'. Passing the creepy doll head drawing on the other end of the white building, the door still infuriatingly locked (though Garry wouldn't say out loud that he was thankful for it, those dolls still gave him the heebijeebies). They then made a turn and saw a poorly drawn sign that seemed to be lying flat in front of them.
"Down to Gallery...what?" Harry said as he read the sign's inscription aloud.
Garry shrugged, and they both filed that in their minds for later. A few steps away was another sign.
"Butterfly Park..." The purple haired teen muttered out, making both boys look up.
There was indeed a larger expanse of crayon area, which seemed to be fenced off by brown crayon. Three giant yellow butterflies were drawn on the outside black expanse, but there were also three crayon butterflies flying around. One landed on Harry's shoulder, and he patted it, saying nothing as he took in the obscurity of the situation. Garry, on the other hand, seemed mildly unfazed. When given a questioning look form the boy who lived, Garry gave a small smile.
"As a descendant of Guertena, I have the ability to make small drawings come to life. Though not on a large scale like the Gallery. I used to play with crayon butterflies when I was a child."
Harry hummed and gave a wry grin, before noticing the house with a blue roof, standing flat near where they were standing. Both teens prodded up to it, and the smaller boy tried the doorknob. He wasn't surprised in the slightest when it was once again, locked, but when he looked closer, he realized there was text on the door.
"There are instructions on the pink building! Read them to open this door."
Garry looked at the door dubiously.
"Such a kind message, it wraps around to suspicious..." Harry snorted at this.
"You can say that again..." Garry was about to open his mouth again to repeat what he had said but was shushed by the smaller teen.
"It was a figure of speech!"
Garry was still laughing as they walked to another area of the Sketchbook. There they found a four way crossroads, and in the middle, a pink house.
"Well that was quick..."
They hurried up to the house to find some writing in blue crayon.
"The Pink Key is always kept in the toy box."
"I...don't see how this helps..." Harry muttered, but Garry was silent.
He was running through the instructions through his head, 'read them to open the door, but where is the key...oh'. Garry blinked, and facepalmed. Grabbing a surprised Harry's hand, he trekked back to the house with the blue roof.
"Wait, Garry! It's locked!"
Garry turned the knob with ease and pushed open the door.
"The Pink Key must be for something else, all we had to do to open this door was read the writing." He replied.
"Oh...that's...bloody brilliant actually."
They walked in to find a much more spacious house, with some sort of black stand on their right. Harry tried to figure out what it was, but they eventually assumed it was a coat hanger. A table sat further away on the left, and it held a silver bowl with some sort of red fruit. Rounding the next entryway, they were met with the sight of a large dresser, a stuffed pink rabbit, and a blue bucket. Harry tried to pick up the rabbit, but it was stuck to to ground. He then tried the bucket, which was lifted with ease.
"Maybe this is useful to us in some way..." Harry murmured.
They quickly filed out of the house, seeing nothing else that could aid them. Passing the pink house, the two found themselves in a drawn forest, but there were no leaves on the branches. Going right, they realized they were back to where they entered, but the pathway back to the Gallery had disappeared. Both of them agreed this was mildly creepy.
"As my brother would have said had he been here, 'just keep swimming...'" Was all Garry had to say on that matter. Deciding to go the other way, they passed the dead forest again to find a large pond. Harry felt the water.
"Lukewarm.."
He briefly wondered what would happen if he put his rose in, but shook the thought away. Instead, his attention deviated toward the bucket he held. Rolling his eyes at the stupidity of the entire situation, he dipped the bucket in the pond. The bucket now felt heavy with water, and Harry pondered what he was supposed to do with it. Harry ran back to the area they just came from, to the house with the smoking chimney. Garry jogged with him, half amused and half confused. It was only until the emerald eyes boy stopped in front of the unopened tulip bud did he realized Harry's train of thought. Kneeling on the ground after years of practice gardening his aunt's backyard, Harry poured the entire contents of the bucket onto the bottom of the crayon plant. He watched in satisfaction as the tulip bloomed, pumping his fist in the air. A glimmer of something between the petals caught his eye, and, like a true Seeker, reached out his hand and grabbed the shiny object nestled in the crayon flower. It was a small light blue crayon key, which had a tag that read 'Gallery Key'.
"Well, now we can unlock the 'Gallery'..."
Now that they were sure of their destination, the two wizards sprinted merrily to the large white building. With a satisfying click, the gallery door opened, and both of them pumped their fists in the air. Inside was a much larger room, and the walls depicted a large crayon drawing of Garry and Harry, each with their roses. On the other side held a drawing of a cheering Mary, and a doll in a pink dress next to her which was holding her yellow rose. In the center of all this were the large letters saying 'Pandora's box' with an arrow pointing to a small grey box on the ground.
"'Pandora's Box,' huh..." Garry murmured, as he crouched down and slowly lifted the latch on the box.
Suddenly, their vision was blindsided by many strange symbols coming out of the Pandora's Box, which flew away before any of them could get a good look. Garry yelped and fell backwards, and Harry dodged the flying crayon symbols as they left the building. For a few seconds they just sat on the floor, confused.
"I wonder what all that was..." Garry said aloud, a shocked expression on his face, before he noticed something, "...Ah? There's something left in the box."
It was a little crayon mirror, which Harry nabbed from the box and put in one of his oversized pockets. Garry chuckled at this, and said as an afterthought,
"A mirror... Well, let's just hope it's hope."
Harry looked at him, confused.
"What do you mean by that?" Garry just blinked at Harry's question, and explained to the younger boy the story of Pandora's box.
"Ah, well... In Greek Mythology, all the bad things on the Earth were gathered and trapped in a small box. The first human girl created, Pandora, was given this box and told not to open it. Naturally, she did. Out poured Jealousy, Hate, Greed, Death...etc, and Pandora shut the box. She opened it a second time, and released a final being, Hope."
"Wow..." Was all Harry could say as he opened the other door of the gallery.
They decided to walk upwards this time, and noticed something different with the butterflies. There was now a fourth butterfly, but it had brown wings with two black dots. Noting this new oddity, the two trekked upwards to find a large drawing of a white snake with red eyes, it's tongue sticking out. Next to it was a drawing of the sun, and a patch of orange sunlight flowed down from it. A little ways away was a blue building, but the door was frozen over. Garry seemed to glare at the door and started muttering about crazy brothers under his breath. Harry just stared at it before speaking.
"You know…" Harry began, "In my First Year I had to go against a Cerberus, Devil's Snare, Flying Keys, a Giant Chessboard, a Troll, a Riddle for Potions AND the Mirror of the Erised to collect the Philosopher's Stone. If we had HALF of the crazy puzzles in this Gallery, I'm pretty sure Voldemort would have just given up! URG, why is Britain so far behind?! This is madness!"
Garry chuckled and shook his head. Patting Harry on the shoulder to calm his ranting friend down, he fixed the boy with a level stare.
"When we get out, you are coming to my house and you are going to tell me EVERYTHING, understood."
Harry just nodded.
Because they had been walking for a long while, Harry sat down in the sunlight, relishing in the warmth it gave. Taking this as a cue to take a break from this insanity, Garry plopped down next to him. They shared a silence for a little while until Garry looked at his watch.
"Ah, dear..." Harry turned to Garry at his words, "Look, Harry. My watch is broken. It was working this morning, but it stopped once I came here..." The purple haired teen looked slightly sad, "I was really fond of it, too..."
Indeed, Harry noted, it was a nice watch. It was silver with bronze hands, and dark blue wrist straps. Actually, it reminded Harry of the Ravenclaw House colors, which made him a bit homesick for Hogwarts. Not that Garry and Mary weren't good company... Garry noticed Harry's downtrodden expression and spoke again.
"Say, Harry... Have you ever heard of Macarons?"
"No..." Harry replied, brows furrowed.
"They're these pastries shaped like hamburgers. I'm rather find of them... And just the other day, I had one at a cafe, and it was sooo tasty! It was really, really good! Even the cream wasn't too sweet! So, uh, if you want, I can take you and Mary there so we can have them together!"
Harry cracked a smile.
"That sounds great! We just have to find Mary first..."
He shifted his weight and the mirror in his pocket protruded a little, catching some of the sunlight. This gave him an idea, and the emerald eyes boy stood up, and placed the mirror down in the sunlight. Suddenly, visible days of sun came from the drawing, and the beams were powerful enough to melt the ice.
"Ah!" Garry gasped, "The ice on the door melted...!" He looked down at the mirror, then at the sun, then at the door, "I see now... You reflected the sunlight." At this Garry laughed a little, "Not too shabbyyy!"
They both laughed as they entered the new building, instantly falling silent at the rather loud ticking noise that resonated within the entire building. On the floor was a drawing of a three by three square with an area in the center that was surrounded by white and red zig zag circles. At each meeting point was a red and gold button, which they carefully avoided as they inspected the obscure map on the wall.
Garry and Harry looked at each other, both holding flat looks of unamusment.
"Symbol Scavenger Hunt?" Garry asked out loud, tiredly.
"Symbol Scavenger Hunt." Harry replied, groaning and putting his head in his hands.
OMAKE 1: This is…
"You know…" Harry began, "In my First Year I had to go against a Cerberus, Devil's Snare, Flying Keys, a Giant Chessboard, a Troll, a Riddle for Potions AND the Mirror of the Erised to collect the Philosopher's Stone. If we had HALF of the crazy puzzles in this Gallery, I'm pretty sure Voldemort would have just given up! URG, why is Britain so far behind?! This is madness!"
"No…" Garry replied with a smirk, "This is Sparta."
Suddenly, the ice door shook, and out burst…
"…Seb…?"
"THIS. IS. SPARTAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"
Suddenly the crayon drawings all shivered as the teen ran away, chased by a very angry Garry.
OMAKE 2: The Mysterious Ticking Noise (AN: YES I AM GOING THERE)
They both laughed as they entered the new building, instantly falling silent at the rather loud ticking noise that resonated within the entire building.
"Hmm..."
"What is that mysterious ticking noise?"
They looked around.
"Not over here..."
"Not over there..."
"Hm..."
"It's kinda... Catchy..."
A shadowy figure appeared inside the room... It looked like a hand puppet version of...
"Snape, Snape, Severus Snape... Snape, Snape, Severus Snape..."
And then...
"DUMBLEDORE!"
"...Snape, Severus Snape... Snape, Snape, Severus Snape..."
"DUMBLEDORE!"
"Ron, Ron, Ron Weasley... Ron, Ron, Ron Weasley..."
"DUMBLEDORE!"
"Hermione...Hermione...Hermione, Hermione, Hermione..."
"DUMBLEDORE!"
Then Harry watched in horror as a grinning puppet version of himself joined the song.
"HarryPotter, HarryPotter, oh! HarryPotter, HarryPotter, that's me! Oh! HarryPotter, HarryPotter, yeah! HarryPotter, HarryPotter, that's me!"
"Snape."
"Harry."
"Snape."
"Harry!"
"Snape!"
"Harry!"
"SNAPE!"
"HARRY!"
And to both teen's horror, out popped a naked...
"DUMBLEDORE!"
"Heeeeeermione!"
Then they started singing again...
"DUMBLEDORE!"
"...Snape, Severus Snape... Snape, Snape, Severus Snape..."
"Ron, Ron, Ron Weasley... Ron, Ron, Ron Weasley..."
"Hermione...Hermione...Hermione, Hermione, Hermione..."
"Harry Pot-ter, I'm Harry Pot-ter, Harry Harry Potter."
"Singing our song, all day long at Hoooooooogwaaaaaaaaarts!"
Shadow Ron came up holding a... Oh no...
"I found the source of the ticking! It's a pipe bomb!"
"Yaaaaaaay!-"
BOOM
Garry and Harry shivered as they heard maniacal laughter, watching in horror as Voldemort arose from the smoke. He started tapping his wand to a beat.
"Voldemort, Voldemort, oh Voldy Voldy Voldy Voldemort!"
Then, all of a sudden, the smoke was gone, leaving a confused Garry and a slack-jawed Harry. Garry's eye twitched, changing into a furious scarlet and he grew angry sharp teeth.
"SEBASTIAN!" He roared, and in the distance one could hear cackling.
AN:
Oni: Another chapter done! I'm so happy…
Harry: Let's hope the next one is sooner, I REALLY don't like scavenger hunts.
Garry: Me neither.
Sebastian: That's just because of that one time-
Garry: SHUT UP.
Harry: …What?
Oni: Nothing~
Oni: Well, don't forget to review, and I shall see you next time, my pretties!