Chapter Eleven
Scream
"Episkey," She muttered, and her cuts healed up. She examined her arms, which had a slight greenish tinge to it. Had the enchantment poisoned her somehow? She had no time to check now, foolish as that may be, she had to find Harry and Ron. Now, if only she could figure out which door to go through.
"Point me," She muttered. At first her wand didn't move. The all of the sudden it began to spin very very rapidly and all of the doors sprang open, save for the third one and suddenly she was pulled with tremendous force, the doors were trying to suck her in to their dark depths.
Hermione let out a scream that would shatter glass as she was pulled quickly and relentlessly forward, within and seconds she was across the room. Instinctively she grabbed the doorknob of the open door adjoining the black hole she was about to be sucked into, this stopped her from disappearing into the darkness, but to her horror, the wood around the doorknob quickly began to crack, the doorknob was about to break away from the door. With a jerk, Hermione forced the door she was hanging onto closed, which was easy, since the pressure was pulling her in the same direction. As soon as the door snapped shut, the pressure stopped, and Hermione was hanging onto the doorknob in pitch darkness. She could here something moving in the distance. Somehow, her wand was in her teeth. She turned her head to the sided and thought "Reducto!" as hard as she could. The door was blasted open, Hermione managed to grab the edge of the doorway and pull herself up into the original room. She quickly darted through the third door, into a very dimly lit doorway. As soon as she reached this, she collapsed in a heap. Her arms were already aching terribly from hanging onto the doorknob. She was fairly sure she'd filled her exercise requirement for the year.
"Harry? Ron?" She called out in a cracked voice after pulling herself together. No one answered. Hermione stumbled up, her legs were shaking very badly and she immediately fell down again. "RON! HARRY!"
The dim room rang with echoes. She got up again, and stayed up this time. "ROOOOOON!" She screamed as loud as she could walking down the hall. "HAAAARRY!" No answer. She felt like crying. They had to be somewhere.
"HARRY POTTER AND RON WEASLEY, IF YOU CAN HEAR ME YOU"D BETTER ANSWER ME RIGHT NOW!" She screamed as loud as she possibly could, and she broke off in a sob. She began to cry and it echoed down the hall eerily. Where could they be?
Suddenly she heard a noise behind her. A dark shape approached her and something clamped down on her wrist. Screaming she began to punch blindly at the thing.
"OW! Stop it, Hermione! It's me! Ow!"
Hermione stopped. "Ron?" She could now see a freckled face glaring at her sullenly.
"Ow!" Ron said again, for effect. "Yeah, it's me, who else would it be? Agggh!!" he cried as she threw her arms around him joyfully,
"You're all right!" She cried
"Mad as a hatter," he mumbled as she pulled away.
"Well, maybe if you'd said "Hi, Hermione," instead of coming out of nowhere and GRABBING me-!"
"All right! Where were you?"
"Where were you? Where's Harry?"
"How the hell am I supposed to know? I asked you first!"
"A big thing in the dark attacked me, but it actually turned out to be a physical projection of my own psychological fear, which I defeated by realizing it was merely powered by my own confusion and turmoil. Then there were doors. Where were you?"
"Uh…in this haunted place…. and things kept grabbing my ankles."
"What, that's all?"
"No, that is not all! They were big slimy dead hands! I thought they were Inferi! There were tons of them and it was a dark hall and they grabbed my ankles and wrists and dragged me down and no spells would work, and I was beating it with a brick, but THAT didn't work either and I thought I was going to die-then I heard you screaming shrilly enough to break glass there and it all sort of exploded!"
"What? It exploded when you heard me screaming?"
"Yeah! You were saying "ROOOON!" and I was like "Hermione! Hey, she's here! I should go find her! And then everything flashed and I was in this really long hall. With doors. But I could tell which one to open because of which one your voice was coming from."
"Why did everything explode?"
"I dunno-you said your thing was a thingy projection of you own whatever fears powered by your something, right? So maybe you distracted me from my fear."
"So, my voice completely distracted you from your fear? What does that mean?"
"…. That you scare me even more than dead hands trying to drag me down into nothingness?"
"Ron!"
"So, you don't know where Harry is?" Ron said.
"No…" Hermione said. "I hope he's all right."
They stood there for a second, exchanging worried looks, then began to run down the hall.
"HARRY?" Hermione called. "HARRY, COME OUT, IT'S US!"
"HARRY! GET OUT HERE! IT'S RON! HERMIONE SAYS WE'RE JUST BEING TERRORIZED BY OUR OWN FEARS, SO IT SHOULD BE EASY FOR YOU TO DEFEAT WHATEVERS HAPPENING TO YOU!"
"HARRY! HARRY! COME ON!"
"HARRY! ANSWER US!"
"Ron, cover your ears," Hermione advised, stopping. She took a deep breath and bellowed "HAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRYYYYY!"
Ron gave a low moan and took his hands off his ears. "You have a really loud voice."
"What is wrong with this hall? We've been walking all this time and haven't reached the end! Lumos!" Hermione grumbled hoarsely. Her wand lit the dim dreariness and Ron lit his as well. They could not see the end of the hall still.
"Fantastic," Hermione said sarcastically. Suddenly they heard a strangled yell and a running figure erupted out of the seemingly never-ending hall and before they knew it, Harry had barreled right into them, sending them flying.
"Harry!" They both sputtered instantly righting themselves.
"Ron? Hermione?" Harry said, for some reason looking at them fearfully.
"Yes!" Hermione cried.
"I don't believe you," Harry said, brandishing his wand at them and waving it shakily.
"What? Why on earth not?"
"Go away. Now. I'm not afraid of you."
"Why should you be? Afraid of me, that is. Hermione, I can see…" Ron said, looking quizzically at his best friend.
"Stop it! Stupefy!" His spell barely missed Ron, who yelped and rolled out of the way.
"Harry!" Hermione said, shocked. "What's wrong?"
"Impedimenta!"
This one caught Hermione in the stomach and she crashed into the wall full force.
"Hermione!" Harry and Ron said together.
"It's really you!" Harry said in a shocked voice as Hermione groaned and rubbed her head, which was reeling.
"Of course it is, you nutcase!" Ron said angrily. "Are you all right, Hermione?"
"Yes…honestly, Harry, what's come over you!?" Hermione snapped.
"I-I'm sorry," Harry stammered. Hermione noticed for the first time his face was as white as a sheet. "I thought you were one of them…"
"One of what?"
"I was in this room-and everyone was in it…everyone I'd ever known…Dumbledore, Sirius, Ginny, Neville…you two…just when I thought I escaped one another one would appear…"
"And what were they saying?" Ron asked, helping both Harry and Hermione up. "Were they doing anything?"
Harry shook his head. "I…really don't want to talk about it…anyway…It got pretty bad, but, I realized finally, that it wasn't real and something happened inside me and…it stopped, so I ran out of there. When I saw you two here, I thought it was happening again, but I know you're real now, because the others would always dodge my spells. I'm sorry, Hermione."
"That's fine," Hermione said. "But…didn't you hear us calling?"
"I heard a lot of voices. I couldn't tell which was which. I thought I was gong to go mad. Where were you two?"
"I was in the dark, being attacked by a thing with yellow eyes, but I realized it was a physical project-"
"She realized her fear was powering it," Ron cut in. "I was being pulled down by these slimy hands, but I heard Hermione screaming like mad, and that distracted me enough to make it all explode."
"Oh."
"Are you sure you're all right, Harry?" Hermione asked.
"Yeah. Are you?"
"Yes. Ron?"
"Just great."
"Well, I guess now we know we're all all right, we should go through that door?" Harry pointed at the door that was now mysteriously next to them.
"I don't remember that door being there before," Hermione said.
"It's next to the one I came through. You must have not been able to see it."
"This is all giving me a headache," Ron groused. "I'm telling you, after all this the bloody Horcrux had better be right behind this door!"
Harry opened the door and walked in, Ron and Hermione following him. They found themselves in another narrow hallway with shiny white walls; in front of them was a labyrinth of paths. They appeared to be in a maze.
"And of course, there's more," Ron grumbled.
Harry sighed and closed his eyes. "A maze. Just wonderful…I'm betting "Point Me" won't work either."
"Don't even try it," Hermione warned.
"Well, I guess we walk then."
They did so, stopping when they reached a fork so Hermione could recite the mathematical odds of them going in the right direction, and Ron could tell Harry to just pick one.
Eventually they grew tired and sat down to rest.
"So, I suppose Voldemort's plan in this is to have us wander aimlessly here until we starve?" Hermione sighed.
"Oh no," Ron groaned, leaning against the wall. "Why did you mention food?"
Suddenly, black hand reached out of the wall Ron was leaning on and wrapped around grabbing him and pulling him screaming into the wall, where he disappeared.
"RON!"
Harry and Hermione both rushed forward, but Ron was already gone and when they pressed against the wall it was stubbornly solid.
"No…" Hermione groaned, her eyes blurring with tears.
Harry kicked the wall a hard as he could, only to receive a very sore foot, it appeared, and they fruitlessly tried to blast the wall down with "Reducto" to no effect it seemed. After a full five minutes of trying, they slumped down in defeat.
"Where is he?" Hermione moaned.
"He'll be fine," Harry tried to reassure himself. "Ron can take care of himself. We'll find him. We just have to find a way out of this stupid maze."
"But how can we possibly find a way out? The maze is so complicated, we'll be wandering forever, and if we do get out, it will be too late for Ron! The maze could be never ending even! And who knows what waits at the end? We have no idea what we're up against!" Hermione cried.
Harry's eyes lit up in an apparent flash of inspiration. "No idea what we're up against! That's it! When I was getting the locket, with Dumbledore, he told me it was a good idea to try a simple spell so we can see what lies ahead of us! Accio Horcrux!"
Harry brandished his wand and there was a crunching grinding noise at these words and the walls began to move, slowly closing in on them.
"Oh no! Look what you did!" Hermione squealed.
"Well, at least we have something to fight…" Harry said as he backed against one wall to get as far away as possible from the other, yanking Hermione back with him.
"Well, that makes everything better, doesn't it?" Hermione snapped.
"Just shut up so I can think!"
"This sort of thing happened when I did "Point Me!" to try to get through the doors before!"
"Hermione, shut up!"
"It's coming in faster…"
Harry responded to this by blasting the wall furiously with spells. "You'd expect him to come up with something more creative!" He grumbled.
"Oh no…this is it…we're done for…" Hermione said as the wall moved in on her, close enough so Harry was able to press his feet against the other side in a pathetic attempt to stop the eminent doom. Hermione sucked in her stomach and pressed her back harder against the wall.
Suddenly, Ron erupted out of the wall, looking furious. He whipped around and cast some sort of spell and the grinding came to an immediate halt. Harry fell down from his balancing act and Hermione's knees gave out.
"R-Ron!" She gasped, stumbling up and hugging him. "How did you do that?"
"Are you guys okay?" Ron asked as Hermione released him.
"Yeah!" Harry said, looking at his friend in astonishment. "That was amazing! What happened to you? Ron? How did you escape?"
Ron gave them a huge smile to reveal pointed teeth.
"I didn't," he said, as hundreds of Inferi popped up behind him, driving the walls apart.
"Sometimes it is worse to win a fight than lose"- Billie Holiday