Joey Drew, Harry had decided, was utterly barmy. The building had looked confusing on paper, but apparently the former studio director had thought it would be a grand idea to turn the place into a full on maze.
Harry had already gotten lost twice, but after living in Hogwarts for six years he had quickly gotten his head around his mental floor plan of the building. Though even that was a work in progress as he discovered the various changes Drew had made to the building. He was going to tear out a few of the walls, that much he'd figured out. But he'd found a few interesting things during his exploration.
He'd found a handful of tape recordings left by a few old employees (and they didn't sound very happy with their boss, not that he blamed them), some old drafts and model sheets of Bendy from the animator's cubicles/closets (he'd bagged those, even the one sticky note of an overly cutesy version of the little devil), an employee cafeteria (he was keeping that, unless the there were nasty magics on the lower floors), and a couple other knick knacks that may have belonged to former employees that he'd stowed away in his satchel. He wouldn't keep all the things he'd snagged, but having a few things to bid off to collectors would certainly help fund getting the studio up and running again.
He knew could be a klepto at times, a hold over from when he'd had nothing to call his own, so a good portion of it would be stowed away at home.
Maybe he'd give a few of the toys to Teddy. Or Luna, she'd grown rather fond of the toons when he would draw them with her menagerie of creatures (She wanted to help at the company once he got it going).
But that hadn't been the most bazaar discovery he'd made in the dilapidated studio, no. That honor belonged to the machine he'd found early on in his exploration. A contraption that looked like a warped chimera of a water heater, a fire hose pump, and a clockwork engine of some kind. It had made his skin crawl, and his magic roil inside him. Something about it just felt- Unnatural.
He wanted to blast the thing teeny, tiny pieces and hand the remains over to MACUSA's Department of Mysteries. He didn't like it one bit, and when his instincts gave him those kind of warnings, he would usually listen to them.
But with how the piping from the machine wove into the building, he wasn't sure if destroying it was safe or a smart idea. For all he knew, it could have brought the studio down on his head. And now he had to turn the blasted thing on. He didn't want to, not even the curious side of his that had survived the war wanted to touch it, but he wasn't getting a choice in the matter. For one single reason.
Drew had somehow turned the machine into the main source of power for the entire Studio.
It was worse since Harry had been allowed to see the reports and knew for a fact certain doors in the studio could only be opened if the power was on. And the light would be needed as he went deeper into the building, what with all the windows being boarded up.
And if Harry was cussing out Drew as he stalked through the halls? Well, who would know other than him?
Harry rubbed his brow, struggling to ward off his impending headache. This was not what he wanted to be doing.
THUD! Clatter!
He jolted in alarm at the sudden noise that cut through the mostly silent studio like a freshly sharpened knife. Harry's head shot up, green-eyes flicking about to find the source of the sound. His shoulders sagged in relief when he spotted what had caused the noise. It was just a board that had fallen from the ceiling of the t-section ahead of him.
"Bloody stars, that gave me a start. This place is gonna need more work than I thought," the wizard said with a tired sigh, running a hand through his bangs. He would need to re-tie his tie his hair soon, he noted, feeling various strands snag on his fingers. He strode further down the hall, squinting up at the spot where the board fell from.
"That's odd..." He muttered, squinting upwards.
Harry couldn't find the spot where the board had fallen from. There were no holes in the ceiling that matched it, and the boards that were there were pressed too close together to even be loose. It couldn't have fallen from there, unless...
He growled.
"Is someone pranking me? If there is, this ain't funny lads!" He called, aggravation showing through in his tone and bringing out the slight Scottish/Irish verbal tics he'd picked up from Seamus and Professor McGonagall. He glared at the ceiling, as though he thought if he glared at it long enough that it would make the hidden prankster reveal themselves and grovel for forgiveness. It didn't.
He let out a frustrated huff, shaking his head.
'Now then, left or right?' he thought to himself, trying to think of where the break room might be placed. Of course it wouldn't be possible to pick up on the logic of a man as barmy as Drew most-likely was. He sighed and decided to just pick one at random. 'Let's try right.'
He turned down the right path, following the small bend into an equally small room with six pedestals (Three on each side, evenly spaced, and looking almost as though they'd sprung right up out of the floor), and a large switch framed by two large black pipes against the opposite wall. It looked strangely, well, toony. Almost like someone had drawn it onto the wall, if it weren't for the faint shadows being caste, Harry would have thought he'd been punk'd by the same person who may-or-may-not have rigged the falling board scare earlier.
He didn't know how to describe how just plain weird this place was for him to feel so unfazed by this.
"Well, I guess I've finally found the break room Franks mentioned in his recording. Now how do I get this thing working?" He approached the switch (lever? It was hard to really tell), which was oh-so-helpfully labeled 'Main Power' with a little 'Caution' sign placed right under it. A flashing screen sat next to it, reading 'Low Pressure'. He stifled a groan. "Oh, why can't anything ever be easy? Just once in my life I'd like things to be simple."
He knew from the recording that he'd need something from each employee's desk to get things running, and there were six pedestals in the room. It wasn't much of a leap to assume he would need that many items (and he wasn't going to call them sacrifices, the term didn't sit well with him. At all). Now the question was, what exactly did he need?
He looked back at the pedestals, there was a picture behind each one. Perhaps the pictures were hints about the objects he needed to find? That seemed logical. Kind of.
"Let's see here, I'm going to need a wrench, an ink bottle, a toy, a gear, a book, and something related to music." He muttered, Harry dug through his bag for the things he'd picked up while wandering through the studio. Surely there were a few that would do the trick.
"I think the record I found would go with the music note." He set it on the pedestal, and froze when a soft humming started up, casting light on the object he'd just placed. Either there was one of those fancy pressure switches he'd heard about there, or there really was magic at work there. He swallowed nervously, eyeing the pedestal with distrust.
"Th-then the inkwell from one of the animator's desks." He hesitantly put it in place on it's appointed pedestal, and jolted when the same thing happened again.
"And the wrench." The process was repeated, right down to the eerie light. They were the only things he'd found that matched the pictures, he'd have to go back through the studio to find the other three objects. He shook his head trying to ward off his anxiety. He really didn't like this.
"Now, where would those- ACK!" Harry jumped in alarm when he turned around the corner and almost walked into a Bendy cutout that had most certainly not been there a few moments ago. It was positioned right in the middle of the hallway, almost like it was trying to block his path. "Who put this here?!"
Harry scowled, his nerves still somewhat addled from the 'sacrifice' room. Someone had to be pranking him. And it really wasn't funny. He started to wind himself up to track the prankster down and give them a piece of his mind ala Molly Weasley. But a flickering light caught his eye.
"What the-?" He knew that kind of light. After spending years in the magical world (where electricity was practically nonexistent), he would have had to be a fool not to.
That was the light of a candle. More than one. Who would be lighting a candle in a building full of flammable items like paper and rubber ink? Were they mad?! They could make the studio catch fire! Harry sidestepped the cutout, his expressions furious.
There was someone in the room with the candles. Someone wearing dull brown overalls and standing far too still. Harry quickened his pace, he anger fading with each step. He inhaled sharply once he reached the threshold of the room.
There was a body strapped to something that looked eerily like an operating table, hanging limply with their chest ripped open, ribs broken and wrenched wide, showing a hollowed out chest. Like their heart had been ripped out, and the rest of their body left to rot in the open. The scene looked even more horrifying with the light of the candles illuminating the from. And the wizard, though he'd never met them, recognized the person in question.
'This-this can't be possible...'
"B-Boris?" Harry stared in open horror at the scene before him.
Boris the Wolf had been Bendy's closest, and rather absent minded, friend. A sweet, lovable character who was more like an over-sized puppy and didn't have a angry bone in his body. Harry had always had a soft spot for the wolf, he'd reminded the wizard of Hagrid and Remus. Intimidating in some aspects, but almost bursting at the seams with kindness for the people around him.
Seeing him strapped up like that, his insides exposed and with toony X's over his eyes, it seemed too surreal to be possible. Toons weren't real, it shouldn't be possible to-to kill them like this. But the rancid smell that permeated the room said otherwise, a horrid combination of rubber ink and rotting meat.
Harry reacted in the only reason way to finding and impossible cadaver, he bent to one side and retched.
Braced against the wall, the wizard kept heaving until there was nothing left his stomach to force out. He coughed hard, grimacing at the taste of bile in his mouth.
Harry wasn't a squeamish person, not since the war, but he just... He hadn't been prepared for that. He hadn't been prepared to find the-the corpse of one of the cartoon characters he was so fond of. He raised his eyes to see inky writing scrawled on the wall.
"Who's laughing now?!"
'Not me, that's for sure.' Harry thought, turning his mournful gaze to Boris' prone form.
"I wanted to know if magic had been used here, but this wasn't what I expected. This is just- Oh Boris," He breathed, his voice quivering as his eyes roamed over the Wolf's form. Flashes from the war flickered at the back of his mind, but he forced them back with a shudder. This was- He had to find out what happened here, how this was even possible, and more importantly, find out who had done this.
Harry tore his gaze from the gruesome sight and started searching the room for something, anything that could explain what had transpired here. But there was nothing, just Boris, the table he lay on, the writing on the wall, and an old, rather pathetic looking plush doll of Bendy. He would have to find his answer's elsewhere.
He carefully picked up the toy, knowing it was one of the things he needed, not daring look back at the wolf.
He hesitated at the door, he wanted to pull Boris down from the table and give him some respect by not leaving him like that. But MASUCA, from what he'd gathered, was far more strict about following the laws they laid out. They were closer to muggle procedures about law enforcement, Harry could respect that. He could respect them trying to keep the scenes from being tampered with and not risking important evidence being damaged. Even if his morals weren't happy about leaving a victim in such a state.
"I'm so sorry Boris, I can't do anything for you right now. But I promise, once the authorities know about this, I'll make sure you get the proper respects. You have my word." Harry said, his voice sounding pained as he looked back at the wolf. He had no idea if anyone, let alone Boris could hear him, but making the promise helped ease his mind. He steeled his resolve and headed back into the halls.
He had to locate the last two items he needed to "appease the gods" (and that was an incredibly worrying phrase for something like this) to get things going. He could only hope ho could find his answers once that was done. But as he left he couldn't help asking,
'Just what have I gotten myself into this time?'