He wasn't fully recovered from the last onslaught of experience, but he steadied himself the best he could as he followed the flickering red light. With each burst of it, it flooded the corridor more deeply, saturating walls and paintings in an intense crimson. He made a deliberated mental sketch of the Elder Wand in his hand and told himself that if he needed it to, his magic would use it like a real wand. He wasn't at the wheels anymore, so he didn't know how effective it would be.
He crept cautiously.
It led him to a door made of heavy timbre, standing ajar. The entire face and frame were infused with the illumination coming from within. That pulsating light had the effect of flares lighting up the corridor in a continuous blast. He said a spell to protect his body as he opened the door. A wall of water stood before him. Red water, like some kind of liquid jello. Light burst from deep inside of it, turning the crimson brightness into a jewel-toned mystery.
He touched it. It rippled like water. He knew what he had to do and braced himself before he could back out. He stepped forward, disappearing into it. His natural instinct was to close his eyes to protect them. He hoped it was another illusion that he could render ineffective just by advancing past it. He could always walk back out, right? If the idea of getting trapped in that wet stuff had occurred to him, he wouldn't have walked into it like he did. But he was there, feeling it close around him. It was a light sensation, not at all heavy like he thought such densely colored water ought to feel. In fact, the deeper he moved into it, the airier and lighter it got. He opened his eyes, but continued to hold his breath. All around him, was the strange red atmosphere. It was like being in a red ocean, with miles of nothing but undulating currents of misty space. The color was disorienting.
Ahead of him, he saw a flash that lit up the air. It must've been the source of all the pulsating brightness. He moved closer with caution. The substance he moved through, felt lighter and lighter around him. His body could feel when it moved from a thickness of fluidity, to a more spacious center. Everything got lighter in weight as he moved forward. His ability to breathe became looser as he dared to relax at the thought of being able to breathe the substance as if it were merely red air. That's when he noticed the shadows. There were things swimming overhead and all around him. They were subtle, and not human shaped. He had no idea what they were, and proceeded with the hope of not disturbing them. Whatever this part of Snape's mind was, it felt crucial that he not cause trouble in this delicate balance of underwater illusion.
Something pulled his vision to the right. He froze, his instincts commanding him to act as lifeless as possible. It was a thing. A large swimming thing. At first, it only had the vagueness of a shadow with tentacles, but as it neared, and Harry's heart palpitated, he could see a hint of it's true purple color and form. It bellowed like a Lion's Mane jellyfish, or some variety of one. It was five times larger than him, and he wasn't sure which part of it was up or down, mouth or anus. It pumped it's way towards him, suspended in the airy red substance as naturally as if it were on the bottom of the ocean. Its flesh looked like layers of ragged lace, hanging loose and left to drag in its wake, along with greyish tentacles too long and numerous to miss.
Its bell-shaped appendage expanded and constricted as it propelled itself gracefully along. Its lacy skin stretched exponentially, like fine webbing, as it took in whatever they were breathing and pulled itself along. Its flesh, looking veil-thin and delicate, but aged with thickness that reinforced its strength, rippled in the buoyancy of an undercurrent that was more air than wetness. It was inexplicable, so Harry did nothing but braced himself for an attack. The thing swam past him. It move slowly, giving him a good look at its alien strangeness. Its dozens of tentacles were longer than the billowing head of it, and Harry watched and waited for their trail to end, like watching a train go by, before he could resume his progress. By then, he assumed that such a creature had no interest in him. He wanted to keep it that way. There were other shadows and things lurking as if watching him, but nothing else came forward.
Ahead, that flare continued going off, lighting his path. He rushed to it, not wanting to give himself anymore time to encounter things he couldn't make sense of.
Mind your own business, he told himself. You're just here to find Snape. Leave his imagination alone. It's probably just more childhood things.
A dome came into view. At first he wasn't sure, but the flare of light reflected off of its ceiling and sides, and lit it from within. With each burst of light, a figure came into view, turning from a shadow seated in murky red dimness, to a man in a chair, thrusting something in his direction.
Harry got closer. He squinted through his glasses out of habit. The man looked real enough, and even more weird, the guy was flicking a wand. Just sitting there, under a clear dome, under a scarlet ocean, flicking a wand. Every time the wand swept forward, that's when a flare would surge around it, lighting up everything and traveling far beyond the dome. So he was the source, the beacon, that Eileen had encouraged him to follow.
Harry's memory tried to remind him of something, but too much was going on. He couldn't place the man, who appeared considerably older than him. He had trim, dark hair that was a bit fried and sweaty around his face. The guy looked stressed, but intelligent. He wore a grim determination, as if he'd been flicking the thing for hours, trying to achieve something. He was dressed casually, like he could've been snatched off the street and plunked down into this landscape of Snape's bizarre psyche. Harry heard the guy curse out loud before flicking the wand several more times in a crescendo of frustration.
"Fuck fuck fuck! Work, you piece of shit!"
Harry looked at the wand to see if it was damaged. He could see hidden magic better without his glasses, so he took them off. He was still some distance away. Sure enough, the ability that let him see the wheels, let him hone in on the wand. He recognized that it was one of the generic wands that Draco kept him supplied with. What was this man doing with it?
He moved closer, not sure he should even tamper with this wild card. But Eileen had acted like, whatever was causing that flare, was something he needed to face. As he approached the man, he let his body come into view. The two of them were still separated by clear barrier that kept the red atmosphere outside, and the man in the chair inside. Harry couldn't see any walls, but he figured it was like an invisible dome. The man saw him and stopped thrusting the wand. They stared at each other through the alien atmosphere, and Harry went closer.
The man stood up from his chair and came right up to the barrier's limit. He pressed on it, a prisoner receiving his first visitor. "You! Harry Potter. It's you. You came. Or I'm hallucinating."
He wasn't surprised that the guy knew his name. That was irritatingly common enough. The man was babbling, and Harry tried to get him to calm down. "You're not hallucinating, but I might be. Stand back, I don't know if I can apparate in this place." Snape's magic was unpredictable. Harry already had a Death Eater to deal with.
"Thank God. I think I've been here for days. That bastard! This is how you treat someone who confesses how they feel? No wonder he's hiding from the world, he must have people wanting to kill him. When I get my hands on him..."
Harry had no idea what the man was going on about, but he had to get in there. He imagined the Elder Wand in his hand, and gently cast a transformation spell, turning a narrow section of the barrier into a door. It let him slip through, closing behind him.
Ash's lips sputtered at seeing him enter. "How…" He knew better than to ask, but he couldn't help himself. "I got your wand. You can just make them appear out of nothing now?"
Harry downplayed his new ability. "There's a lot of unstable magic here. I just took advantage of it." He wasn't sure it could work outside of Snape's mental environment, so he wasn't going to get too attached to it.
He added, "I have to be careful. It attracts his worst memories. Like it triggers his security system, which I guess is a Death Eater. You seem to know me. Who are you?"
The answer stuck in Ash's throat. He went around the question. "His worst memories? Foster's worst memories? Is that what this place is? This red hell?" He recalled the mention and fear of Death Eaters from Harry's lecture, and didn't like the idea that one might be lurking outside this red cage.
"I guess, I don't know. That's where I ended up. How did you get here?"
Ash stared at the wand in his hand. "We had a, a disagreement. Needless to say, I'm no match for a fucking wizard."
"Disagreement? You mean you're not a memory?"
"I'm not a memory, I'm real."
"Oh yeah? How'd you meet him? Everything in here is connected to his memories, his past."
"I'm certainly real. And if that's the case, then you're just a memory."
"I'm real. I broke into this place. I broke into his mind using the magical animation of his portrait. I didn't know that it would be a portal to his personal magic. I think that's because he's still alive and not dead, as the castle thinks he is. This whole place is some kind of compromise between life and death."
"You're telling me. I haven't eaten a thing, but part of me believes I've been here for weeks. Like some purgatory. He put me in fucking time-out, like a child. Who the hell does he think he is?"
Harry tried to be helpful, he had a mission to get on with. "Maybe he put you here to keep you safe. He's got treasures in here too. Personal things. His mother's here. If he wanted to hurt you, you'd be dead already."
He looked around. There was only a sand floor, a chair, and the dense atmosphere outside. "He's got a dome over you, the way people protect and display things. He's got huge creatures swimming around you, maybe even guarding you. It feels more like you're quarantined than punished. Now that I think about it, you must be very important to him. Have you encountered anyone wearing an ugly mask and trying to kill you?"
"No," Ash admitted.
"Then be grateful. I think you and I landed in different parts of his mind because he feels differently about each of us. And I broke in. You were invited. How do you know him?" The question was pointed. It was a reminder than he hadn't forgotten that Ash had avoided telling him who he was. Knowing who this man was could clue him in on the real Snape's intentions and whereabouts.
Ash shrugged, reluctance welling up inside of him. Harry's deductions gave him new concerns that far outweighed the ones he'd had a minute ago. This kid did have history with Foster and knew his character as well as anyone could. Could his insight be trusted? Ash wanted him to be right. He'd forgive Foster for anything, if there might've been a hint of truth in Harry's words.
"I helped him once. I'm a doctor. Name's Ash Hastings." This kid was gonna find out anyway. If he'd done all the stuff he talked about in his lecture, he was some kind of boy wonder, with a reputation for not backing down. Ash couldn't afford to play the elder card with someone like this. Hell, he still remembered how advanced that kiss was, and wanted to kick himself for thinking of it. This was Foster's kid, after all. Of course the little shit was probably some kind of hero genius.
His mind made a significant connect just then. Foster's kid. He'd only thought it because Foster was so protective of the boy. It never dawned on him that Harry might actually be his, until now. The leap in logic nearly knocked him off his feet. No wonder. It made so much sense! Harry's worship, Foster's insane avoidance and retaliation. Now that he looked, the kid did resemble Foster.
"Well, Ash Hastings, you're not very magic. How did you get that wand?"
There it was. Ash rubbed the back of his neck like he was under the noonday sun, on one of the many beaches from his childhood, and nothing else pressing him at the moment. He stalled, but then leapt recklessly into honesty.
"I got arrested with you. At a rave. No telling how long ago. I have no sense of time in here."
There was no point in trying to hide shit from this kid. No, he didn't want the emotional fallout, but he didn't want to have to walk on eggshells for the rest of his life either. If he ever got what he wanted, he wasn't going to give this a chance to bite him in the ass. Not anymore than it already was, anyway. Now was not a good time to voice his suspicions.
"You may not remember, you were pretty wasted. We kinda… made out." He paused, waiting for the inevitable look of repulsion to appear on Harry's face, at their age differences. When it didn't appear, he continued. "A second later we were being handcuffed. When they took you away, I found your wand and took it with me. I had it on me when Foster sent me here. I've been trying to use it. I know I'm not magic, but this thing is. A man can try to ask for help with it. You showed up, didn't you? Like it called you or something. I'm not chalking that up to chance. You walked right in here, unless I'm dreaming all this shit."
Harry looked confused, but not repulsed. He shook his head. "You're not dreaming." He couldn't say that he was surprised about the rave or making out with this guy. He'd been taking pills and drinking, and looking to obliterate his thoughts the night he went clubbing with his teammates. Then Draco had rescued him from jail the next day. He had no memory of this guy.
"Who is this Foster?"
"That's who put me here."
"Not Snape?"
"You call him Snape. I've seen your lecture and your memories of him. It's the same guy. I call him Foster."
Multiple identities. That sounded about right. Snape wanted everyone to think he's dead, after all.
Harry asked, "When did you see him last?"
"Days, I think. I haven't kept track of time very well. You don't have the normal clues in a place like this, and my watch doesn't work in here."
But was it portrait Snape or the real Snape?
"When did you meet him as Foster? How long ago?"
"A little over two years now. He was injured, I patched him up." Ash offered this as his credentials, because Harry looked skeptical. "I have a private practice, but occasionally I'm called to respond to trauma at the town hospital. You can look me up."
"And you've seen him regularly since then? Outside this place?"
"Yes. He keeps to himself, mostly. I knew he was running from something, but I made myself useful and I guess he decided to trust me. I gave him a place to stay when he couldn't walk. I took care of him. I guess I earned that trust. Now look at me. It comes, it goes. I knew he cared about you, but if I'd known a kiss with you would boot me out of his good graces, I'd have left you alone that night. I had no idea it was you, until the lights came up."
Harry thought hard. The man believed what he was saying, but that didn't mean he wasn't misled or bewitched in some way. Still, he'd just confirmed that a living Snape existed outside this portrait, and therefore Snape had survived Nagini's bite after all. There, that was the perfect test.
"When he was injured, when you first met him, what sort of injuries did he have?"
Ash had to defog his mind. "Oh, wounds all over. He'd been chased by people with wands, wearing masks, like you said. Hideous. He had some kind of burns all over, I think they were trying to take him back alive. But the most serious injuries were his severed Carotid artery and poison running through his system. Turned out to be a snake bite. I had a devil of a time treating it. When he could walk again, he walked with a cane for several months. I sort of hated to see him go. Interesting fellow, if a bit distant."
There. Harry had all the proof he needed. Over two years ago, that would've place Snape dealing with Nagini's attack, having survived without anyone knowing, other than those who continued to hunt him. And they weren't talking now. Harry weighed his options. Whatever happens now, he new he had to escape with this man and stay glued to him, to find Snape.
"Okay. You must know him. If I get you out of here, can you help me find him?"
Ash looked like a man who hadn't learned his lesson, or anything, from being imprisoned in the red atmosphere. He knew the lengths Foster went to, to hide from Harry. And he remembered the tent lecture, where Harry all but swooned when speaking of his teacher. It wasn't like he had anything against him. It would serve Foster right. When it came down to it, this kid was the only card he had. Would Foster see it as a betrayal?
Ash said firmly, "Yes. Yes I can."
Message: There will be two more chapters released today. :-)
