Mrs. Cormier was absolutely livid when she heard the news later that night. She had jumped from her chair as if she had been electrocuted, and her nostrils flared. Guidry had managed to calm her down, but the fact of the matter was that they all felt that they were sending Harry into a lion's den.
But as much as Harry saw the Cormiers' hesitation, he knew that there would be no way around it, and he wouldn't risk finding out what would happen if he dared to defy Carmelita.
Even though she was detestable to be around, and he hated her with every fiber of his being, he thought that if she just flirted with him a little. He smiled politely at her for the entire duration of his meetings with her. He would be safe enough, and so would the Cormiers. This was what he had to do to ensure that the Cormiers stuck around to help him so that he might find his way home. He started looking at it in that way, and then it became easier.
The work wasn't so hard on Friday now that he knew his way around it and that there was no dreaded meeting with Carmelita. He was still unsettled by the shadows that insisted on harassing him, but when the day was over, he realized that they would be heading over to the mystery meeting with the Cormiers' friends the next morning.
Harry wasn't sure what to think of the whole meeting; he felt weirdly anxious to go and see them like a kid might feel the night before an excursion. Well, he had never been allowed to go on excursions or any kind of trip, the Dursleys trampling on every smidgeon of fun that they could, but he imagined this is what it would feel like.
He was warned that they would wake earlier than usual, and they all headed to bed as soon as dinner was over, Mrs. Cormier looking like she had a cloud hanging over her head.
She hadn't taken the news of Carmelita owning Harry as a pet too well. He didn't have much time to think of it because the moment he set his head on the pillow, he fell asleep as if while he worked with Guidry, it became easier and easier for the shadows to claim him during the night. It felt as if he had barely closed his eyes before Mrs. Cormier was rousing him.
He didn't feel as though he had had enough sleep, and he took his breakfast groggily, trying not to reveal his bad mood to the Cormiers.
The last thing he wanted to be to them was a nuisance - they had been so kind to him, he owed it to them not to be a cranky teenager. He debated whether he should take the sinister portkey that he considered a part of his close belongings (and of his only belongings, at that). Still, something told him it would be a bad idea, and though it near pained him (and he couldn't have said why it pained him), he left it behind, tucking it into his pillowcase.
He pocketed his wand and quickly realized he had no other things to fuss about taking with him. He quitted the room a little dejected. Before the first rays of sunlight stole over the sky, they were out in the cool pre-morning air and walking out of town.
Mrs. Cormier carried two heavy rucksacks laden with various goods, and Harry took one off her hands. After he did that, he asked if they would be going on foot, and they frowned at him as if taking it for something obvious. He felt a little embarrassed.
As they left the more populated areas, Harry was shocked by how quickly civilization became the wilderness. After an hour of the trek, there wasn't even a path to mark the way they went, and thick, dark green plants were strewn at their feet, trapping them up like greedy little fingers.
The ground was pale and lifeless, and it was easy to get a little depressed by the stifling, humid weather and the overall bleak appearance of the landscape. Harry remembered some show or movie he had once seen, one that featured some detective drama in which they found that the serial killer lived in a run-down house next to a swamp.
This was the kind of thing that his surroundings reminded him of, and he found himself jumping at every little noise. It didn't help that he was certain dangers were lurking nearby. Even in his rational mind, he knew it. It was strange how everything seemed so alive around him, every plant flourishing and yet so simultaneously sad and muted.
His jumpiness was further aided by seeing something like a machete on his back when he looked a little closer at Guidry. Snakes? Alligators, even? His previous bad mood worsened, and to make things worse, he couldn't help the swarms of mosquitos that were taken to landing on his face and neck, and he swatted away at them furiously.
The Cormiers, on their part, looked relatively calm as they walked. It was good that they had begun so early because the bright morning sun was now burning a hole through Harry's very being, and if they had been walking purely on sunlight hours, he would've collapsed on the way.
They must have walked at least five hours (during which Harry became convinced they had lost their way - how could they possibly know where they were going in this monotonous wilderness?). Still, they finally spotted a small home hanging just over the edge of the water, as if clinging to the edge of a swamp.
The trees were thick around it, hanging low and grey like discarded snakeskins, and Harry could've sworn he had seen something moving about in the water. The house itself was a little shabby and splintered, made of dark wood, with a porch that hung so low Harry was surprised the alligators didn't come knocking on their door.
The place was surprisingly well-kept considering the location, but Harry didn't quite understand how these people found food, water, or any comfort here.
How could you when anything could come out of the treacherous foliage and eat you? And he wasn't the only one on edge due to their surroundings: Guidry stood poised as if ready for an attack. When they got into view of the house, Mrs. Cormier sighed sweetly, weariness tinged with relief. The sun was doing horrors to them, and Harry felt downright feverish.
He didn't know about the Cormiers, but he was definitely not used to this kind of physical exertion, and he felt red and raw despite the hat that Mrs. Cormier had given him earlier in the day.
The sun had assaulted him, anyway. They went around the swamp and right to the doorsteps. The steps, like the house, were rickety and looked frail, but they held up surprisingly well under their weight. Before they even knocked, an old, dark-skinned man opened the door and let out a pleased holler. "Here y'alls is!" He said. Or, at least, Harry thought that was what he had said because his accent was so thick it was nearly incomprehensible.
Mrs. Cormier ran up to him and hugged him. "Clet!" Mrs. Cormier exclaimed as he held her. "It's good to see you," she said warmly as they separated, and he and Guidry clapped each other on the back. The man's eyes suddenly focused on Harry, weeding him out as the intruder. "Who this?" He asked, tugging at the tuft of wispy white hair on his chin.
Harry felt himself under severe scrutiny, and it was hard not to bolt, try his luck with the snakes. "This here is H- Alastor," Mrs. Cormier introduced, taking Harry by the shoulders and forcing him to stand before the man. Harry wasn't sure why she had called him Alastor if these were their friends, but he reckoned she must've had a good reason.
Maybe she didn't want to have to provide many explanations, but he reckoned that considering the color of his skin and his sudden appearance, she would get many questions in any case. He wondered whether they would tell the same story about Guidry's sister being his mother, but he didn't think that would be very believable if these people knew them well. "Hello," he said awkwardly as the man squinted at him. "He paler'n a chicken," the man judged. But he didn't question why the Cormiers had brought a random white boy to their meeting, and he only went through the door without inviting them, grumbling something incomprehensible. Inside it looked much like Harry had expected, the only cleaner.
But there was an overwhelming stench of the swamp that seemed unavoidable. A woman came in from another room, about as old as Clet was, and though she looked at Harry a little warily, she was more gracious than the old man had been. She introduced herself as Rose and offered the new party water. They all accepted greedily, and she returned a moment later with a pitcher and a few glasses.
They sat at the threadbare couch in the living room, and Harry gulped down his water greedily, barely hearing what the others were saying.
He thought maybe his brain had swollen due to the heat, and he would soon be dead. The water was good for him, but it was painfully warm, and he couldn't shake off the intolerable heat from him. He felt woozy and almost deranged as if he would fall at any minute. He wasn't even aware of what anyone was doing around him.
He felt a hand on his shoulder, and when he managed to focus, he saw Mrs. Cormier's worried expression looking back at him. "You don't look too good, sugar. D'you want to lie down?" She asked him. Harry nodded, barely able to formulate a word. He needed someplace to fall asleep before he fainted.
It was strange to be in such a state - not only did his physical exhaustion already put him in a mood, the setting and odd characters only added to the sensation that this was only some bizarre fever dream. He heard Mrs. Cormier addressing someone, and then some very gentle yet hard hands led him up and away.
The wooden floors swam beneath his feet, but he wouldn't become even more of a nuisance by fainting, so he did his best to stay upright and thanked whoever it was that had brought him to a stained bed. The sheets seemed almost made of paper, and there was no duvet (why would there be? Who would feel cold here?).
He had the good sense to remove his muddy shoes before hopping into the bed, the person that had led him here leaving quietly. He immediately collapsed, the world closing in on him quickly the moment his body accommodated itself onto the bed
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It was still light out when he woke, but it was mellow and golden, the light of a fading day. He was in a tiny room with a small, open window through which he could see the swamp. Doubtless, the depth of his sleep and the open window could account for his itching and the little flies that seemed to float about the room.
He was groggy and felt sticky, his sweat having passed through the sheets, but he was considerably cooler than when he had first arrived, so it was almost a relief. He sat up and began to unstick his shirt from his skin, trying to take a deep breath and cool himself down somehow. He had slept with everything on but his shoes, and seeing the mess they had tracked in made him endlessly grateful.
He put them back on and then headed out to what he thought was a startlingly silent house. When he arrived at the living room (which he could see more clearly now without that feverish haze that he'd had), he heard a few soft voices coming from someplace farther in the back.
Carefully, feeling like an intruder, he walked over to the sound of the voices to find Mrs. Cormier and the older lady conversing seriously in a splintered yet immaculate kitchen, two glasses of what looked to be lemonade in their hands.
Harry looked at it fixedly, just the sight of it filling him with relief. "Alastor, sugar, you alright? Thought you had sunstroke or somethin' like that," Mrs. Cormier said, putting a hand to his forehead affectionately. "I feel better, just not used to the weather," he told her, not wanting her to worry. "Look a' him- he looks like he done ate up the sun, he so red," the older woman chuckled, and if Harry hadn't already been so red, he would've blushed.
She didn't seem as wary of him as she had been before, though that might've been part of his imagination. Maybe Mrs. Cormier had spun up a tale that had settled her down. He wondered what it was. "You wanna glass a' lemonade?" The woman asked. Harry eagerly accepted, much to their amusement.
She opened a massive contraption that looked to be a fridge but couldn't have been and poured him a glass from a massive pot inside the cooler, serving it with a ladle and giving him plenty of ice. "Thank you - Rose, right?" He asked, his hand closing thankfully over the cold glass. "Rose Guills," she told him. "Guidry and my husband are out by the porch, having they nasty smokes if you wanna join 'em," she told him.
For some reason, though, Harry felt more comfortable here with them.
He didn't remember the other man's presence being very welcoming, and though he liked Guidry, he didn't think the combination of the two would set him very much at ease. "I'd like to stay with you if that's alright," he said shyly, and the woman started chuckling. Just then, however, there came a violent rap at the door. "That must be Ren. The damned boy can't show up early t'save 'is life," she grumbled, but his face had lightened up considerably.
She went up the door to open up for him, and Harry lingered in the kitchen with Mrs. Cormier, taking small sips of his lemonade, savoring it as best he could. There came the sounds of a warm meeting from the living room, and Harry waited expectantly for the next guest to show up. "Alastor," Mrs. Cormier said, looking up at him suddenly like she had something urgent to say. "This meeting today... you might see somethin' weird. Somethin' you might not be able to explain. But you shouldn't be worried, alright? Nothing's gon' hurt you here, and you just go along with it. It's best if you don't fight it." Harry frowned at her words, but he didn't have time to reply because Mrs. Guills and a tall, ebony-skinned gentleman entered.
The man was darker than all the rest of them, his features cut sharply into his face, with a broad nose and a serious, tired expression, like he had been through a hundred lifetimes in the space of one. "Ren," Mrs. Cormier nodded at him politely, but there was no embrace, no clapping his back. "Molly," he greeted back, his voice smooth and quiet, yet imposing. "This here, Alastor," Mrs. Guills told him as Ren scrutinized Harry. Harry fidgeted a bit as he was being watched and, consequently, judged because there was absolutely no way that the expression on that man's face was not one of judgment. "Hello," Harry greeted, feeling silly, sipping his lemonade. He felt much more like a child than he had before, and this man intimidated him even more than Guidry did.
The man didn't even nod at him, just looked past by the window after he was done thrashing him with his stare. Before he knew what was happening, a young girl had materialized in the kitchen doorway, and she ran up to Ren.
He turned around, hearing her footsteps, and his arms opened automatically to pull her into a hug. She couldn't have been more than eleven or twelve, and she looked unbelievably tiny compared to the massive man.
They didn't say anything to each other, but their encounter was so intimate Harry felt the urge to look away, feeling like he was interrupting some sacred meeting just with his very eyes. Ren had swept the girl off of her feet, and she now dangled in the air, in his arms.
It was actually adorable how the man had seemed so menacing before and now was holding the girl so tenderly. Harry didn't even understand who she was or where she had come from. When the two separated, Mrs. Guills put a hand on the girl's shoulder and pointed to Harry as if she were a child much younger than she actually looked.
She had been completely entranced by Ren, and when she noticed Harry, her eyes widened, and she looked like a deer caught in headlights. "Adelaide, say hello to Molly - and this here Alastor, he came with the Cormiers," she told the young child, but she seemed like she was ready to run away. She couldn't even smile, couldn't even flash a look at Mrs. Cormier, who she doubtlessly knew, such was her evident discomfort.
After a few seconds of awkward silence, Ren took the girl by the shoulders. "Come," he said in a sweet yet commanding voice, and he led her away into the living room, shooting a dirty look at Harry as they left. He felt awful, like his very existence was upsetting these people, and he truly did not belong here. "Don't mind Ren," Mrs. Guills told him with a wave of her hand, taking her lemonade back in her hand, "he a good man, just careful, tha's all," but Harry couldn't help but wonder whether Ren would be acting in that same way towards him even he weren't white. Really, it wasn't that he judged the man. If he were in his place, he would probably be wary of Harry, but it made him feel guilty for something he could not do anything about.
He wanted some sort of opportunity to show these people that he couldn't be anything like the other white people that they had met. Still, anything he could've done would've felt weird and inappropriate, so he could only hope that by acting kindly to them, they would come to understand. "Who's the girl?" Harry asked once the other two were out of earshot, but he immediately realized that he had asked the wrong question because both Mrs. Cormier and Guills tensed.
He didn't know what he had done wrong now, but he was shocked by his ability to be a dumbass and not even understand why he had been one. "That'd be our little Adelaide," Mrs. Guills finally said, finding her words. Once she had said it, she loosened up a bit, and Harry couldn't understand why the question had had such a reaction, but he decided not to pry any further.
From the looks of it, she wasn't their daughter, considering how young she was, so was she Ren's? For some reason, it didn't seem likely: they barely looked alike, and their greeting hadn't been as a child's with their parent.
But what did Harry know? After a few minutes in which Mrs. Guills and Cormier took up the quiet conversation they had previously been having, Guidry and Mr. Guills entered from the porch, smiling and laughing. "'Bout time for dinner," Mrs. Guills muttered to herself and rushed them all out of the kitchen.
The crowd was dispersed to the living room, where Mr. Guills lit candles due to the dwindling light. Ren had just been sitting alone on one of the couches, looking ahead of him at the clock mounted on the wall. His expression was completely vacant.
He didn't even start when they came in, but as the conversation flowed between everyone (that was, except for Harry, who kept his silence and took to observing), he started awakening from his trance and even put in a word or two.
Harry soon came to find that Mr. Guills was a fun-loving, loud man who made Guidry act much in the same way. Though he didn't understand everything that the man said, whether because he said through pure slang or just because his accent was thick, Harry found himself laughing a bit when Guidry made a particularly witty jab.
Mrs. Cormier, too, seemed to unwind and have her own kind of fun with the men, who were now drinking beers like they were water. Harry's lemonade having been drunk and the ice chewed a long time back, he accepted a cool beer from Mr. Guills' unworried hand, thankfully.
The man didn't even think twice about it, though Mrs. Cormier gave him a look. "Is it alright?" He asked her quietly, hoping the others wouldn't hear. It seemed almost contradictory to accept a beer and simultaneously ask Mrs. Cormier if it was alright that he took it as if he were a child, which he had momentarily forgotten that he was.
Unfortunately, though Mr. Guills looked very old indeed, he was sharp as could be and let out a bark of laughter upon hearing it. "Alright?!" He cried, "why, how old's you, boy?" "Fifteen," Harry replied hesitantly. "Fifteen! I was five when I took m'mama's whiskey'n locked m'self up in t'bathroom t'drink it." "And see how you turned out," Mrs. Cormier teased, shaking her head. Mr. Guills laughed at that. "Go ahead, Alastor," she said in a low voice, and Harry gave a small smile before tasting the beer.
It was bitter and thick, quite unlike the ale that he had had the day before with Guidry, but it was blessedly cool, and he couldn't very well put it down after the whole previous interaction had taken place, so he just took the smallest sips, hoping he would grow used to the taste.
He wondered how much alcohol it had and was willing to wager it was a whole lot. At some point, Mrs. Cormier stood to go help Mrs. Guills in the kitchen, and she had to press a hand to Harry to keep him from going with her. It wouldn't win him many points with the other men to trail her like a lost puppy.
So he remained, sipping his beer and listening to the men banter about seemingly trivial matters, every once in a while telling an insane anecdote about some gator they had fought or a woman they had courted in their youth. Mr. Guills particularly was full of these stories, and though he had seemed tense with Harry around at first, he loosened up quickly with the help of his beer, and once again, Harry wondered what tale the Cormiers had been telling about him.
The air hung heavy with smoke, and Harry's eyes began wandering about to the living room decorations when he was unable to follow the conversation. There wasn't a great deal of decor, but there were thick, massive stones propped up on randoms corners of the room, much like the ones that Guidry had around his neck and draped on the shop, but massive and more imposing.
There were even some smaller stones etched into the walls, and Harry's curiosity was sparked to see some random glasses with what looked to be water and something white sitting at the bottom of it - some of the glasses were ringed in black, the white stuff at the bottom looking like it was slowly getting burned.
He wanted to ask about the glasses but wasn't sure how appropriate that would be: it was hard to tell what was overstepping boundaries in an unknown house. He hadn't exactly had much practice socializing in this manner - it wasn't like the Dursleys ever took them to their dinner parties, and it wasn't like he was allowed to participate in the ones they had at home.
He was surprised that when he thought of the Dursleys, it seemed like a lifetime away, even though just this summer he had seen them. Even Hogwarts, his friends, Sirius seemed too far from his mind, farther than he would've liked, which made him nervous.
Something suddenly caught his attention in the conversation. "-I'on know why y'all stay in that forsaken town, shoulda just come live with us out 'ere," Mr. Guills was saying. "We had this conversation before, Clet old man, yo' mind going," Guidry said with a shake of his head. "I know, I know, jus' hate seeing y'all around these white folk. I ain't trust 'em, makes me sick to think you, neighbors, with those- with them-" "You really ain't ever know when to shut that hole a' yours, Clet," Ren said smoothly, taking a swig from his beer. To another man, that would've been a horrid insult, but Clet took it with a laugh, shaking his head, and quickly changed the topic.
So Harry wasn't the only one who had been questioning why the Cormiers stayed in town, but he was certainly the only one who hadn't gotten an answer yet. He was left itching to know the reason, but the conversation had passed, and it would've been weird to bring it up again.
Just as Harry finished his beer, Mrs. Guills and Cormier called them all over to dinner. They were led to a spacious dining room, where the two women were setting down a pair of massive plates, one piled high with meat and another with assorted steamed veggies. A great smell came from the veggies, but the meat looked a little off, and Harry was afraid to ask what it was lest they should answer something strange and he would be put off. He didn't want to seem rude.
After looking at the dining room, it suddenly struck Harry how weird it was that these people could afford to live here, have ice and beer, have friends over, and keep everything nice and tidy. Maybe they had busted themselves hard all their lives to be able to live in tranquil solitude, away from all the white people that would hate them for existing.
They might live among alligators, but even those were probably better than the white people Harry had met so far. The dinner passed with much laughter and an overall sensation of well-being, the only two people keeping their silence being Harry and Adelaide, who only politely chewed and listened to the others.
But Harry's silence was one of an observant, and he even laughed when an excellent joke was cracked and smiled at the others - Adelaide seemed to be wandering about in a world of her own, completely disconnected from the planet, barely picking at her food.
It was strange to see such profound sorrow and dejection in a face so young, and Harry even had a feeling that his presence made things worse for her, so he avoided looking at her as much as he could, but he still couldn't help his wandering eyes every once in a while, like they were magnetically drawn to her strangeness.
He was offered another beer, which he now took without hesitation. Though he was suspicious of the curious, pale color of the meat, he ate it and found that it was not too bad, but he couldn't shake the feeling that he was eating an alligator, or at the very least something he shouldn't be. The vegetables were delightful, even though they had seemed incredibly plain at first, and he loaded them with butter, feeling like he could stomach more right now than he had in days.
He was slowly starting to feel comfortable around all these people, and they did with him, as well. It was hard not to fall into step with their easy banter, and by the end of the meal, he even put in a small, timid comment of his own, which earned him a clap on the back from Mr. Guills.
Harry flushed red. This was nothing like what he had pictured the Dursleys' dinner parties to go, and he was sure that nothing of the sort could've happened in them. This was all so casual, so homely, so real that he felt his heartstrings tug at how roomy and cozy it all was.
After the meal was over, Mrs. Cormier served up a bunch of preserved, lovely peaches drenched in some weird wine syrup, and they all ate heartily. When they had taken their fill, the men all stood to go have a smoke on the porch, and Harry lingered to ask Mrs. Cormier whether she needed any help. "Alastor, dear, don't you ask that again, you go with Guidry, now," she told him as she loaded up the plates, and Guidry himself took him by the shoulders and led him out to the porch.
Outside it was even hotter than on the inside, somehow, as if the water of the swamp did nothing to drive away from the heat but rather collected it and shot it in all their faces. Harry sat on a bench on the porch as the men milled about, looking for their cigars and glasses of whiskey.
Guidry sat beside him and pressed glass with half a finger of whiskey in it. "Take it slow, kid, I ain't want you goin' around vomiting here," he told him gruffly, but with what Harry thought to be a sort of affection. Really, he had eaten a lot, and the thought of a whiskey did not seem enticing at all when he remembered the burning sensation of his throat when he had last drunk it.
But he felt that something was going on between him and Guidry, something he didn't want to spoil, so he took the glass without a word of objection. Maybe he will give me something to start my research soon if he trusts me, he thought hopefully. "So, ya boys got everythin' ready fa tonight?" Mr. Guills asked as he sat down on a rocking chair with a sigh. "What happens tonight?" Harry asked, furrowing his brow. The men all gave him side glances.
No one answered for a moment, which seemed to be the longest moment of Harry's life, and then Mr. Guills spoke. "You a spiritual man, Alastor?" He asked, lighting a cigar. Harry hesitated. "I-" "Well, if you ain't, you gon' be one afta tonight," he said curtly, but that only left more questions hanging in the air that Harry didn't feel he could ask.
Still, the whole thing was so unsettlingly cryptic that he couldn't help but ask. "What's going to happen?" Mr. Guills dismissively waved at him. "It gon' be better if ya jus' see it, boy," he said, but Harry wasn't eased. He only knew that his questions would not get answers.
But now that he looked at the three men around him, he almost felt like their body language was telling him that they were waiting for something, expectant, in preparation. Whatever it was, at least they knew it was coming, whereas Harry found himself completely in the dark. All of a sudden, he felt how sinister the setting was - these people that he didn't really know, with their strange backstories and their secluded home in the middle of a swamp.
He remembered the movie about the serial killer, and his heart jumped as the feeling of homeliness that had been established suddenly shattered. He drank his whiskey faster than he should've and felt the weight of all the alcohol he had taken suddenly bear down on his shoulders, but he didn't think he could be considered drunk just yet.
The men were all talking amicably, though without all the fervor that had previously been taking place. "How's Addy doing?" Ren asked. Harry thought he had probably tried to ask it casually, but he could hear the weight in his voice. "Much's always. I think she doin' better, though it was hard t'tell," Mr. Guills replied, and he looked at Harry for a moment, "don't think she likes ya bein' here much. No'fense." Harry frowned. "Did I do something?" He asked, but he just got another of Guills' dismissive hand waves. "She distrust all white folk. Y'can gets that." Harry pursed his lips, wondering what had happened, and, sure enough, the air hung heavy with expectancy, so he felt he could ask. "What do you mean?" "H- Alastor," Guidry said, clearing his throat, looking visibly uncomfortable. "Addy a Robinson," he told him curtly. Robinson.
The tale that the Cormiers had told him a few days before suddenly surfaced, and Harry's blood ran cold. Ren looked particularly pained by the story, so Harry decided not to ask how she had survived or whether she had been spared or simply left behind. He was sharply slapped in the face by the reality that these people lived - these weren't just stories, it was their realities, it was their day-to-day.
Harry kept his silence and hoped that soon another conversation would spark up, but he soon found that none of the men were in a talkative mood and instead just looked ahead at the swamp as if waiting for something with sharp teeth and curved claws to come at them.
After a few minutes, when the sound of clattering dishes from the dining room and kitchen had settled down, the men all stood at once, as if being called by something that Harry himself couldn't hear, and headed to the living room.
Harry followed them without a word and found that Mrs. Guills and Cormier were already there, setting up something on the coffee table. There were pale, thick wooden sticks and what looked like incense, together with a dozen small rocks on the table. The heavier stones in the corners had been brought to the center, displayed all around the table.
The women moved around, their movements almost rhythmical, and Harry lingered around the living room, unsure of where he should take his place. Guidry took him by the collar of his shirt and set him on the couch, where Ren also lingered, looking gloomy and as if he were steeling himself, but not necessarily for something unpleasant.
Mrs. Guills had gone into the kitchen, and now she had come back grinding some thick, almost-black substance in a mortar. "Clet Guills, you get to cleansing those stones," she ordered in a soft yet commanding voice, and Mr. Guills stood up, produced a match from one of his pockets, and struck it against the table.
He took one of the thin wooden sticks from the table and held it to the flame. The stick was slow to burn, but when it did, it released a sweet-smelling smoke. He passed it to Guidry, who took the stick and a large rock and began curling the smoke around the rock.
Harry assumed that Mrs. Guills had been referring to when she mentioned 'cleansing.' Mr. Guills set to lighting incense, then passed it to Ren, who willingly took it and set to cleansing his own selected rock. Harry was about to offer his help in the strange ritual when he noticed that both Guidry and Ren were muttering something under their breath, something that Harry didn't quite comprehend.
Every member of their small party (even Adelaide, who had resurfaced God knew when) got either a stick or incense, and they all cleansed the rocks on the table, one by one, All, that was, except for Harry, who only watched them with growing anxiety to see what was going on.
It seemed painfully slow, and all the smoke took up so much room in what seemed to be cramping space as if time had almost halted. The situation was odd enough, with the only light coming from the scarce candles and the dim-lit points of the incense.
Harry had the impression that the shadows seemed to pulse around them, readying themselves for something. Still, he convinced himself he was wrong because he was definitely feeling woozy after all the alcohol.
Mrs. Guills took the mortar into her hands once again and then walked towards Harry when they were done. She offered him the pestle, whose end was dripping thickly with the brown substance which looked like sugar and molasses mixed up.
Harry suspected it wasn't anything of the sort, however. "You first, suga'. Gotta show ya willingness," she told him. Harry was about to ask willingness to what exactly, but he reckoned that the question would show unwillingness, somehow. He looked at Mrs. Cormier, who nodded gently. Mrs. Guills held the pestle to Harry's mouth, and Harry slowly poked out his tongue and lapped some of it.
It seemed he had taken a little too much because Mrs. Guills removed it from his mouth very quickly. It tasted faintly herbal and mostly just like he had lapped up dirty, and he wondered exactly what it was that he had just consumed. The precariousness of the situation lighted and then dimmed from his throbbing mind like a living, sleeping animal.
Mrs. Guills said nothing as she repeated the process with all those present. They all took the smallest bit, and when the last person had been reached, that being little Adelaide, they all huddled closer to the couch and locked hands. Beside him were Ren and Mrs. Cormier, but they weren't looking at him. Instead, they were looking at the rocks on the table.
They took his hands, and Harry accepted, and all at once, he had the queerest sensation of their flesh on his flesh. The candlelight flickering most strangely, as though it were dancing to a tune instead of flashing nonsensically as it usually did. Harry thought of the relationship between shadow and fire and realized that the candle's strange motion was as if there was an invisible yet dark hand taunting the flame.
He held his breath as they all began to chant something incomprehensible.
Harry, who didn't know what they were saying, kept silent and watched the world grow and wane before him. After the candles, the walls were the first things he noticed to be moving. They were curling and pulsing like a flame would, shifting weirdly like an image in a distorted mirror.
He blinked and found that it wasn't just in his imagination, and when he looked beside him to tell Mrs. Cormier of his findings, he saw that she had disappeared. They were all gone, and he was sitting on the couch, alone, the candlelight twinkling, almost making a noise.
For some reason, Harry felt like his brain had a wet blanket atop it, and so the sudden disappearance of those around him didn't come as much of a shock as it should've. The world itself seemed to be hazy, and now the smoke hanging in the air was so thick that Harry had to blink several times and even began coughing.
His physical discomfort grew to a point where it was intolerable, and he stood up, unsure of what it even was that he wanted to do.
At that moment, the front door blew open, and with it came a blessedly cool breeze that seemed to calm his very heart. He didn't even have time to think about the fact that this was impossible and that the heat was even more stifling outside than it was inside, but he felt so suffused that he crawled over to the door just to get a better taste of the fresh air.
He almost leaped over to the door, desperate for the sweet coolness. Still, when he got there, he saw that the door no longer led to the path which would lead into the wilderness, the one that they had taken upon arrival, but rather that the door was a precipice that fell into the swamp as if the house had twisted around and was now facing the other way.
Harry stumbled and almost fell into the murky water but caught himself just in time. He turned around to inform someone - anybody - that the house had changed positions, but there was no one there, and he didn't know why he had thought there would be.
There were only shadows where his eyes had thought there were people. The shadows were cast in the dark spaces between the candlelight, each shadow long and distorted, like the ones a human might cast.
But they were also inhuman, and they belonged to no one - they were too long, too... animal. Harry was about to cry, and then the shadows began to walk towards him, nearing him. He stumbled and fell into the water. He thought he had landed head-first, but when he found himself submerged, it was only his lower half, and his abdomen was clean.
He stumbled about, lurching forward to keep away from the shadows, which seemed to have found their limit at the doorway and lingered there, waiting for him tentatively.
There was a sound like whispering echoing in his head, and he couldn't say whether it came from the shadows or if it was just his imagination. Regardless, he slushed ahead, and when his hand splashed against the water, he found that he wasn't actually getting wet, but rather that what had appeared to be water was like a sort of smoke that had lifted from the ground and flowed in the strangest ways, forming shapes that Harry couldn't understand.
He held his head in his hands, feeling immense and small in the wildness of the situation, and trudged forward in the sludge of the ground to the strange water's edge.
The journey seemed to last a lifetime, his stride long but slothful, and he felt like he was about to cry or lay down and accept death before it was over.
The boots that Guidry had given him did their job at keeping the mud from wetting his feet, but he could still feel the uncomfortable sensation of it as he reached the end of the fake water, where the queer trees curled towards him, their weird leaves draped like snakes waiting to come to life.
When he arrived, he gathered his breath and leaned against a tree, willing the experience to be over and for a reason to come to him once more. Still, he knew he was nowhere near normalcy because his brain felt just as strange as before, the whole world and him breathing as one, everything having a pulse, throbbing, a great universe of a heartbeat. "Harry," a soft voice called to him from the darkness ahead, in the foliage.
He whipped his head to the sound. Though the voice had been soft, it was thin, scary. It was... well, it wasn't unlike Voldemort's voice. Could he have followed him here, to the very end of the earth? Did he know that Harry was here and had come to seek him out? "Harry," came another voice, further back, but this one wasn't like the first.
It was pleading, desperate, the voice of a friend in need. Harry looked around but could see nothing, and he walked in near-absolute darkness. It was a moonless night, and the thick foliage above gave way to little to no light. "Harry!" It insisted, now louder.
He realized it came from the soil, and when he looked down at his feet, he saw the faces of the Cormiers poking out from the dark dirt, barely distinguishable from the ground but their features easily distinguishable as Guidry and Molly. He cried out - it was them, but their faces were bloodless, their lips thin and purple, and they looked completely and utterly dead.
Harry stumbled over their buried bodies and fell to his feet. The faces were looking at him, but they were also looking at nothing: vacant and lonely, they called to him without moving their putrefied lips. Without thinking twice about it, Harry dug his hands into the dirt and started to remove it so that he might free them.
His hands worked away, and he felt the stones, and the rough soil cut into his palms as he dug into the black, squelchy mud. He did so desperately, the vines inside the soil tangling in his hands and restraining him, and the work did not help to get the Cormiers out even a centimeter. "Harry, Harry, Alastor, it will take you, too, go, go, go, go," came the voice of Mrs. Cormier, though her lips still did not move, and the voice came from nowhere. Harry was confused, and as he dug one more hand into the dirt by her face, a vine twisted around his fingers and held him in place.
He gasped as it tugged him down. "You will stay here, stay, frozen, in the dirt," came from another voice, the first one that he had heard, but now he realized it wasn't Voldemort's voice, but rather the voice of the darkness itself, of shadows, hissing like a chorus.
The vine tugged harder, and now his arm was fully inside the mud, and it was dragging him into the ground quicker than he would've thought humanly possible. When he tried to scream, his face was plunged into the soil, and his mouth opened to a mouthful of pain, his lungs searing with it.
A moment later, he was fully submerged, buried, his limbs taken completely by the vines, the mud. The terrible arms only let him loose when he was completely submerged. He thrashed around in search of air, but he forgot in which direction the surface had been and found only mud and leaves, things like roots and twigs burrowing into him.
He wiggled in the darkness, his arms searching for any sign of anything that might save him, and when he was sure he was about to be eaten by the dirt, his fingers closed in on something metallic.
He held onto it as if it were life itself, his last breaths coming in slow, his energy completely depleted. He tugged at the metal object as hard as he could, and just when he was certain he would pass out, it gave way, and he fell through into a void. His head knocked against wood, and he felt himself being birthed by the dirt.
He spat out mud and leaves as he felt the air again, his throat burning bitterly. When he managed to breathe again, raspy as he did, he used his hands to push out the remaining dirt from his glasses and eyes. He looked around and found that he was back in the living room of the Guills house.
Again, there were people as if they had never left, but only Mrs. Cormier, Ren, and Adelaide. They were completely unperturbed and had not noticed his chaotic arrival at all. Mrs. Cormier sat at the couch with her eyes closed, humming to herself, seemingly in a completely different universe.
Ren was sitting on an armchair, his fingers closed around a thick cigar, his eyes looking somewhere outside of the room, and Adelaide was huddled on the floor, rocking herself and looking straight into the flame of a candle. Harry felt even lonelier than he had before, and he was about to try to snap one of them out of their trances when he noticed it.
From the light that came behind him, he saw his shadow. Only it couldn't be his shadow: he was only a small, slight teenage boy, and this shadow belonged to a man much taller than him, wilder, longer, his very stance different from his. Harry looked behind him to see whether there was someone there behind him, alarmed, but he had known even before he looked back that there was no one there - this shadow was his and his alone. He looked back at it.
The shadow seemed to be holding something in its hand, some sort of scepter, from the length and the odd shape at its end. Harry squinted his dirt-filled eyes at it. It couldn't be his shadow. "But it is. It is Alastor's shadow," came several thin voices from behind him. He looked back to where the darkness had pulled into the forms of the animal people once again.
It was them that had said it. The hairs at the back of his neck stood on end. When he tried to look forward again, his own shadow - Alastor's shadow - had grown red eyes and the most terrifying yellow smile, starkly contrasting against the unnatural pitch blackness of its figure. He cried and tried to escape from all the darkness, but he didn't manage to take a step before it swallowed him whole.