Chapter Four... Gingerbread

The window was open as I dressed, and I could feel the gooseflesh prick along my shoulders and the back of my neck. At this point I had long abandoned my school robes, much less dress robes. I was deciding between black slacks and a red sweater, or simply slacks and a black t-shirt. The cold didn't bother me too much anymore, and the t-shirt was much more comfortable... why was I even trying so hard!? It's just a simple dinner between two acquaintances who happen to have a few things in common.

Now that was a morbid thought. What did we have in common... well, we're both seekers for our house teams - yeah, and I'm sure she also has a massive cousin who beats the living daylights out of her every summer. A fat lot, that's what we have in common.

I walked into the lavatory and washed my face. It felt good, almost as if I had just awakened from a long and glorious sleep. As I dried my face, I caught a good look at myself in the mirror. It felt like several years had passed since I last took the time to look at the mirror, excluding my bizarre morning call. I was tanned and hardened from Quidditch, but still rather slight for my age. Seekers are not usually very large - I guess I was a little surprised by my physique. My face was still the same as ever, although my eyes were almost... glowing. Pulsing. I switched off the light, and to my surprise, they shimmered dully in the dark.

It must be the way they catch the light from the bedroom, I decided before heading back into the room, I think the black t-shirt suits me.

I got dressed.

---

The sky was quickly darkening, and the low roar of thunder in the distance indicated the coming of a blizzard. I was unaware of this at the time, for when Cho had invited me to the Ravenclaw common room, she neglected to give me directions. After about thirty minutes of wandering, I started to think that maybe it was a joke.

Brilliant, Potter, I thought as I sat down on the stairway. It was as dimly lit as the rest of the castle and did nothing to improve my mood. Even if it was the real thing, I was already late and I had probably blown my chance with Cho.

What chance? It was just... oh, forget it. I know that this could be the only chance I had with Cho, but I still couldn't bring myself to see it that way. Why-

I heard a screech from just above my head. I looked up to see the dark-crested owl skim overhead and drop a note on my head. It whirled in the air like a billowing quilt and flew straight up. I cautiously reached for the note and tore off the seal.

-

Harry,

I almost forgot! You need to head into the library and follow along the left wall until you reach a narrow stairway. There will be a large bookcase at the head of the stairs. Open the violet book. The password is "Gingerbread."

-C.C.

-

The ink was still fresh upon it, and the signature had smudged a bit, but the handwriting was too familiar to deny.

My stomach turned sideways as I ran downstairs to the second floor staircase. I rapped my fingers upon the bannister impatiently as I waited for it to rotate to the right opening. It didn't take too long after that to reach the library, and once inside, I ran along the left wall until I reached the alcove where the staircase was. It was ridiculously long, but I could see that there was only one violet book in the whole wall. I pulled the book from the shelf and opened it.

"Gingerbread," I whispered to page 365.

It dematerialized in my hands, and with a loud, rusted groan, the bookcase split into quarters to give me a doorway reminiscent of a crucifix.

"Here we go," I said to myself as I walked into the doorway.

There was a slight tunnel leading into the common room, and it segued into a segmented room with walls draped in multi-colored fabric. Each segment was large enough to fit the Dursley's house complete with it's surrounding yard, and each was a different color along the walls. I could feel a throb in my head from standing in this room. It was an overwhelming beat, steadily accelerating, and to my equal surprise and disgust, I realized that the beat was a pulse. Unlike the Gryffindor common room, or even the Slytherin common room, this room was alive.

"Harry, is that you?" a steady voice called from somewhere, "Walk toward my voice."

It was as if I had swallowed a whole bottle of a particularly heady wine. I stumbled out of that particular section of the room and into a violet-draped wall. Almost immediately, I felt mellow, safe. The violet floor ascended into a cathedral-ceiling that was the brightest of sapphire blue. There was a voice somewhere inside of me, assuring me that this was home.

"I'm over here," the voice seemed so familiar, but I couldn't place it, "you just need to see."

I looked at the walls - they seemed to flicker the longer I stared at them. The blue began to give way into a stormy gray-black and the violet began to rot and flake away. Beneath it was a wooden brown and dark leaves. I felt the first snow reach down and kiss my cheek, but I walked down a path that grew more known as I walked it. My feet sank into a ground that was never totally dry, and my face was hidden by trees that reached to the very top of the sky. Like a forgotten nightmare, my stomach curled inside of me as I stood at the edge of an abyss.

A literal gorge in the earth, it sank to the very bowels of the world. I turned to face the forest, but Hogwarts was just a memory, to far to call for help, to draw upon its power. The stones where she had once stood were no longer there, having recently given way to erosion. I choked down a bitter laugh. It was almost funny.

"You came." It said simply. The voice had lost its little girl sensibility.

The snow fell more freely now, and my vision was beginning to cloud with the combination of darkness and snow. Light and dark. But I could still feel a burgeoning dread, the knowledge that something was coming was eating me from the inside out.

I could hear scratching, the sound of fingernails scraping across clay and stone and grit. It grew louder - I heard a stone pulled loose and it fell into the pit - and louder still. Unconsciously, I drew back until I felt the rough bark of a tree behind me. Without fanfare, a single, pale hand reached up and pawed at the frozen clay. It dug fingertips into it, and its other hand followed. Slowly, but surely, a body rose from its agile crouch. It was dressed in darkness, hugging every curve and crevice of its body, and dead eyes stared at me from behind stringy, crimson locks. It smiled at me with a mouth full of needle-thin teeth.

"Hello, Ginny." I said.

---

I opened my eyes to a completely white room. A shadow was grabbing me by the shoulders and it finally shook me awake. A waterfall of black hair cascaded down from her shoulders and brushed against my face. A pair of eyes so brown they seemed black reflected worry as their owner frantically tried to revive me. I sat up, sweating from head to toe.

"What was that?" I wheezed, still breathless. When I looked at my rescuer, it turned out to be Cho, sitting silently next to me. She still looked nervous, but relived that I was okay, for lack of a better term.

"I forgot to tell you," she also sounded out of breath, her hair now disheveled and cheeks flushed, "that is a sort of... I guess you would call it a defense mechanism against intruders, or non-Ravenclaws who like to play pranks."

Her emphasis on 'non-Ravenclaws' led me to believe that at least one of her companions had been the victims of Fred and George. She pulled her hair back while I got back on my feet. I straightened out my shirt and extended a hand to her to help her up. Once we were both on our feet, I noticed that the room now appeared as hospitable as the Gryffindor common room, complete with a massive hearth and fireplace and leather-clad sofas. The colorful fabrics still adorned the walls, but the oppressive pulse had diminished to a purr. I turned around and I could still see the psychotic arrangement and odd energies of the other segments radiating toward us in literal waves. In this little kiosk, however, was a place fit to live. In the middle of this home-styled set was a low table surrounded by cushions.

"What is that thing supposed to do?" I couldn't help but ask - the hallucination was still vivid in my eyes.

"It is supposed to scare away anybody who breaks in, kind of like a boggart." she gave me a sideways glance, "But I've never seen it react like that before..."

She bit her bottom lip as if she had said too much, but the message was clear: It had only done that because I was Harry Potter.

I sat down on one of the cushions, and two fat goblets full of iced butterbeer materialized before me. Cho moved around to the opposite side of the table and took her seat. She had dressed nicely for the occasion; she wore a deep violet blouse with a dark, full-length skirt, (which I noticed a slit up front that reached to just above her left knee.) She smiled shyly from behind two stray bangs as she sipped lightly from her goblet. I, however, was still shivering from revisiting that moment, and that horrific vision...

No, I told myself, a hallucination, not a vision. Visions come true. With my stomach as weak as it was, I just took a swig from my goblet. It settled a bit, and I could finally reach back to the present. I looked at Cho as she stood up and sat down next to me, and the butterflies suddenly multiplied by twelve.

"So... what's it like living here?" As stupid as it was, it was the only thing I could come up with. Cho sighed a bit before answering.

"Well, the common room is supposed to reflect the emotions of the people who live here, which is why it seems so fragmented right now without enough people to influence it."

I remembered the comfort I felt in the violet room before I had fallen into the trap, "Does it just divide itself like that without people?"

She nodded flatly, "I suppose so, at least that's what it's been doing while I've been here."

She's never been here alone before, I realized before I saw the white room behind us wither away into a mournful blue. Finally, I quelled the butterflies in my stomach by slamming my goblet down on the table. Cho jumped up at the sound, but I put a hand on her shoulder.

"Cho, can I ask you a question?" I looked her in the eyes, and was surprised when her gaze was equally strong.

"Absolutely."

I took a deep breath before proceeding, "Why are you here by yourself?"

---

The earth was frozen where she was, harsh upon her numb fingers that clawed deep into the clay, pulling her closer. She who felt the cold permeate through her frail her body and wake the deadened flesh. Frozen was better than numb, she thought.

She had been numb for a long time.

Her broken spine groaned uncomfortably as she endured her climb, and the sutures in her arms pulled her skin in unnatural ways. Still, she climbed and broke through stone and ice alike until she reached up at last and gripped air. She sighed with a mouth full of dirt and pulled herself up out of the abyss. Her naked flesh didn't prick in the cold, but she didn't expect it to. Before long, she was clothed in dark and earth. The ice, it seemed, could be melted away. She ran her fingers across her face, and she felt the rough, bumpy, featureless skin on the side of her face. It seemed so... familiar. So did the stones below her, slippery as they were. Her hair stuck to her face in red streaks, but nothing mattered. Nothing matters except finding THE BOY.

But then what... she would find THE BOY, but then what.

A sharp pain ran up her spine, and she coughed up muddy water. A grin spread across her face as she tasted blood in her cold mouth. She would find THE BOY, and then she would spill his blood.

---

Hermione Granger was laying down on her bed of red satin when she tasted blood in her mouth. She woke with a start and ran into her bathroom and retched crimson into her sink. The bitter, coppery taste still played on her tongue as she rinsed her mouth out.

What was that, she thought as she spit into the sink. Her face was flushed and her hair matted down to her face with sweat. The temperature felt as if it had risen by about twenty degrees. Without much thought, she reached into her shower and started the water.

There were so many things in her mind and not enough time to file them away in her memory. She hated not being able to sort things out, but she knew that many things could only heal with time. In only three weeks Harry had become a completely different person. And she couldn't face either Harry or Ron without a surge of helplessness and impotent anger. She needed a face to blame, someone other than herself to be angry at.

God... couldn't it just be over, and I could have them again, she silently cried, tears forming at the corners of her eyes, I just want them to be them.

She undressed, yelling to her parents downstairs that she was going to shower. Before she got in, she looked in the mirror. Vanity was something that never crossed Hermione's mind, but the discovery of her body was something that she couldn't pass up. She ran her fingers down the center of her chest, and below the contours of each breast. She was always surprised at her changing appearance, and this, in all its shallowness, amused her.

Steam was already gathering above her, so she thought it best to enter the shower.

She let the hot needle-stream run down her hair and across her face, and it soothed her beyond all measure. Hermione sighed unconsciously, and a smile played on her lips as she let the spray massage her shoulders.

I don't care what kind of potions and spells I could come up with, she mused, this is real magic.

"No girl," a vitriolic, velvet voice whispered into her ear, "this is real magic."

Two long, skinless arms reached from behind her and pulled her against the cold tile. Hermione felt the slick hands pulling her by the waist and arms with an ungodly strength. The bones in her left arm crunched from beneath the grip and she screamed. Her spine was bending in an unnatural direction as the tile began to give way. The tile cracked and one of the hands slithered around her thighs.

She screamed. Her arms flailed and thrashed, but this only resulted in the sinewy limbs to constrict their grip on her. No less than five arms were crushing her against the wall, but as the pipes beneath the tile shattered and stabbed her, it became harder for her to breathe. She could vaguely hear the rumblings of people coming up the stairs. Her parents had heard her screaming and commotion and were running upstairs.

The bathroom door slammed shut.

"Leave...t-them... alone." She said through gritted teeth just before all of the light disappeared.

When her parents finally broke down her door, they saw a hole torn into the wall below the showerhead, and the jagged edges of the broken piping were slick with blood and sinew. Then they screamed. And screamed.

But the only hole was in the bathroom wall and not the room behind it.