Totally forgot to announce last chapter that I was starting Level 2 this week. Uh, surprise? Welcome to Dungeon 2, the Temple of Sacrifice! I'll be posting art of it to the garden-eel-draws tumblr during the week, but to summarize the aesthetics, it's a mixture of Kakariko's Well and the Shadow Temple from OoT, as well as the Earth Temple from Wind Waker. Why am I doing a horror-themed temple so early on in the game? Because Hogwarts has dungeons and ghosts, so I'm extrapolating from that element of its native geography. Content warning: lots of dead stuff. The temple is like the bone catacombs under Paris with a little more gristle.
"I can't believe we're doing this now. The school got blown up yesterday!" Millicent Bulstrode groused. "Shouldn't we be at the Hospital Wing, like everyone else?" She cast a glare toward the green-eyed Potter and the blond pureblood he was talking to.
"Madam Pomfrey's been trying to kick out all the well-wishers since they started pouring in," Blaise Zabini informed her, having been in the Hospital Wing until a few hours before. Draco had shown up with an offer of adventure, and he'd been glad to take it if it got him away from the zoo forming in the medical ward. His injured wrist was still wrapped in bandages, but he could move it around somewhat and the pain potion he'd taken would be effective for a while yet.
"Did you hear how many people got hurt?" Crabbe asked. "I bet it was a lot."
"Yeah, it was a lot," Blaise said with sarcastic slowness. "Mostly bruises, blown eardrums, concussions, and burns, going by Pomfrey's ranting. Nobody died, thank Merlin, but the nurse is on the warpath."
Goyle sidled up to their little huddle. "You think Potter did it? The yellow one? Everyone says he did."
"Does he look like he could have done it?" Millicent scoffed. The boy was half-hidden behind his Weasley friend, anxiously glancing about. "No, I saw the thing that did this, and it wasn't human. The sword must have made it, or something."
Blaise snorted. "'The sword did it'. Seems to explain just about everything these days." Hearing approaching footsteps, he cast a glance over his shoulder. The stocky forms of two infamous red-headed fifth-years were galloping down the corridor in their direction.
"Oi! What's all this?" one called.
"The ickle thirdies are gearing up for an adventure, are they?" the other asked, seemingly of the first.
"You need any chaperones, Harry?" both chimed.
The Weasley twins skidded to a stop and looked around the group. Four Harry Potters, Hermione Granger, and Ron Weasley had seemingly teamed up with Draco Malfoy, Gregory Goyle, Vincent Crabbe, Blaise Zabini, and Millicent Bulstrode. Oh, and Dog was there, too.
Blaise smirked at the perplexed frowns that flashed across the twins' faces. It wasn't often that the notorious pranksters were caught by surprise.
"What is all this?" the twin on the left wondered aloud. "Do you think a Poe got us again, George?"
"Nope, we're seeing straight," said the twin who was apparently George. "Harry, you do know that's Malfoy's lot you're working with, don't you? The ones who've been total pricks—" Fred elbowed him and George corrected, "—total gits to you since first year?"
"Yeah, but we've got a truce," Potter said with a shrug. "Besides, the other Gryffindors are the ones being gits right now. One of the fourth-years gave Yellow a black eye!"
Blaise raised an eyebrow. Ah, so that was why the boy was so jumpy. He didn't have the injury now, likely having gone to the Hospital Wing to get it fixed, but Blaise had seen him rubbing at his left eye every now and then. He wouldn't have guessed that a Gryffindor had attacked the weakest of Potter's copies; weren't the Lions more loyal than that? Then again, everyone liked to praise Gryffindor House, so who knew what supposed virtues they truly held?
Fred and George exchanged a look. "You get his name?" George asked with an innocent smile.
The yellow Potter stepped out from behind the younger Weasley. "N-No, it's fine!" he squeaked, shaking his head.
'Interesting,' Blaise mused. Was that what Potter looked like when he was scared? He didn't recall ever having seen such an expression of panic on the boy's face—not even when he had been revealed as a Parselmouth on a stage in front of a good chunk of the school.
"It's not fine, and the only reason I haven't set him on fire is 'cause you kept telling me not to," the red-eyed Potter said sharply. To the twins, he said, "It was Cormac McLaggen, mates. Are you gonna have a go at him now, or after we get back? It might be a while."
"That's alright. It'll only give us time to think," George said with a wink.
"Looks like we're joining your quest!" Fred announced. "Now, how are we going to do this?"
"Differently than planned, now, thanks to you," Draco griped. "Blue, Green, come here." He snapped his fingers and motioned to a corner out of earshot from the rest of the group. He swept off like a little blond Snape, Dog at his heels and the requested Potters trailing behind.
"No tantrum about 'Weasels' ruining his fun? No 'Father will hear of this'?" George remarked. "Bizarre."
Fred watched the young aristocrat stride off. "Maybe he's already got a Poe in him."
It was decided that there would be three teams—two with five members and one with four. Blaise found himself grouped with both Weasley twins, Millicent, and Yellow. Malfoy and his following of Crabbe, Goyle, and Dog were to be joined by Red. Lastly, the green and blue Potters had teamed up with Granger and the younger Weasley.
'I have to deal with three Gryffindors?' Blaise thought with a mental groan. 'Merlin save me from foolhardy heroics.'
As the groups walked past the Potions classroom, toward the section of corridor that led to who-knew-where, Fred and George ran to the front and turned around. "Alright, before we go in, listen up, thirdies!" George declared.
"There's a lot of creepy dead things in that cave up there, and they aren't as nice as the monsters that pop up around here," Fred began.
"They aren't just going to knock you out or teleport you to the Great Hall."
"They will probably kill you if they can."
Both boys stopped here to give everyone dead-serious frowns. Blaise shifted nervously from foot to foot, unnerved. Fred and George Weasley weren't cracking any jokes? Surely this was a sign of impending doom.
"Also, the cave itself is going to try to kill you. Don't trust the walls, or suspicious metal plates on the ground, or piles of bones, or even the floor tiles, because some of them are traps," George went on.
"Lots of them are traps, actually, and a few of them are handy shortcuts. Walk carefully or keep a nice, long bone on hand so you can poke around and make sure everything's real."
"There's enough of them down there for everyone to grab a femur, we promise."
"And if you get possessed by a Poe—these ghost-things with swirly masks—stand still. You'll just walk all screwy and fall into an invisible hole, otherwise."
"Or stab yourself in the shin on some invisible spikes. Can't forget those!"
"So watch your step, and have fun!" both twins concluded with identical grins.
Blaise swallowed hard as the Weasleys rejoined his group. Was this what adventuring entailed? He'd heard of Potter's exploits, like fighting off a teacher possessed by the Dark Lord and a basilisk the size of a train engine, but those had sounded so fantastic that he never would have imagined the reality would be like this. Had Potter been scared out of his mind before taking on those ridiculous challenges? Blaise could feel himself shaking, and he hadn't even gone in the cave yet!
A meek voice made him flinch. "It's okay. It'd be weird if you weren't scared." The yellow Potter had walked up behind him with surprising stealth. He peered up at Blaise with concern in his peculiar golden eyes. "We'll get through this together," the boy said with a smile of encouragement.
Ordinarily, Blaise would have fired off a snarky retort, but he didn't have the heart to snap at the boy. He was so earnest and…argh, he couldn't define it! Something made him want to avoid hurting Yellow's fragile Hufflepuff feelings, though, so he managed a small smile and a nod.
They rounded the corner—the last group to do so—and Blaise sucked in a breath. Beside him, he heard Millicent mutter a curse.
Three odd-looking Inferi, bony and blue-skinned, sat quietly in wait before the gaping, roughly chiseled hole that had opened in Hogwarts's masonry like a maw of flesh-colored stone. The undead creature nearest them looked up at their approach, the motion visible only through the slight swinging of its elongated earlobes. A glimpse of soulless red eyes could be seen glowing in the shadows of its face.
"A good, strong Lumos will stun most of the critters around here for a little while," George advised everyone. "Lumos, and any fire spell that comes to mind. If any of you find a way to actually hurt them, though, we'd love to hear it."
Fred took out his wand. "Let's show you how it's done, shall we? Incendio!" A jet of fire slammed into the lead Inferius, causing it to jerk back in slow motion and then freeze in place.
"Now run! And shoot the other ones while you're at it!" George shouted.
Blaise pulled out his wand, hiked up his robes, and sprinted toward the entrance of the cave. He fired off two Incendios at each Inferius he passed, just in case, and didn't stop running until the monsters had disappeared around a corner. He wasn't taking any chances with the undead. His mother had told him enough about necromancy for him to know its dangers.
Millicent caught up with an easy jog, not at all winded. "I've never seen you run before," she commented. "First time?"
"Shut…up," Blaise wheezed.
The Weasleys and Yellow came from around the corner, George looking back over his shoulder. "Did anyone else see the exit vanish?" the redhead asked. "It's just solid stone, now. Nobody else followed us in, either."
"Vaati knows a Hero walked in here," Yellow explained, tapping on the sword strapped to his back. "The trap snapped shut on us."
"You could have told us about that beforehand," Millicent growled. "I didn't volunteer to be trapped in a cave with three Gryffindors."
"At least one of those Gryffindors has a sword that can hurt the monsters in here, probably," George said. "We didn't have that when we wandered in."
"Not only that, but you get our prior experience!" Fred chirped.
Millicent scowled and turned on her heel, walking deeper into the cave. "Stupid Lions shouldn't get to make good points," she huffed.
Blaise followed his fellow Slytherin at a cautious pace, turning his head frequently to study his surroundings. The "cave" was starting to look more like an ancient temple as they headed farther into it. Craggy stone was giving way to carved reliefs of tortured figures and highly stylized skull symbols. Actual skulls were lying around, too, scattered like kicked stones.
An eerie prickle crawled up Blaise's neck. Some of those skulls looked too small to belong to human adults. He hoped that didn't mean what he thought it meant.
The light around them went from cool and bluish to an unnatural reddish pink as they walked, and skulls gave way to entire skeletons. Hogwarts's brisk, slightly damp air gave way to a heavy, moist atmosphere that smelled faintly of bad meat. Breathing felt like inhaling someone else's foul breath. Goosebumps lined Blaise's arms now. He really should have just stayed in his bed in the Hospital Wing and endured the crowd. He wasn't supposed to be here. Nobody was supposed to be here.
They stopped in front of a massive set of rusted iron doors surrounded by a wall of—oh, Merlin, the smell…
"Skeletons? Bloody skeletons, with rot still on them?" Millicent screeched into the sleeve she'd raised to her nose. "What is this place?"
"Hogwarts has dungeons and lots of ghosts," Yellow said hoarsely. His ashen face was dyed pink in the temple's bloody light. "Where do ghosts come from?"
Blaise clamped down on his thoughts before they could start picking at that question. He really, really didn't want to consider that right now.
"Let's go, shall we?" George said with false cheer. "Right this way…" He and his brother walked up to the door (the door made of dead people!), and then disappeared right through it.
Oh, this was going to suck, wasn't it? Blaise sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly. He gathered up his courage as he watched Yellow, and then Millicent walk through the door.
'The sooner we get done with this, the sooner I can get back to bed,' he thought as he forced himself to move forward.
Blaise shut his eyes as he went through the illusory blockade. When he opened them, he was faced with a vision from one of his mother's favorite novels. Iron crosses with rag-wrapped bones at their bases and streaks of blood marking their surfaces stood at each corner of the large room. A large cage surrounded every cross, their bars marred by the desperate scratching of dying prisoners. Piles of bones sat here and there, some speckled with bits of flesh. The center of the room was dominated by the slowly spinning statue of a cloaked, skeletal figure. Its arms were posed as if it held a spear or some other long-handled weapon, but its hands clutched empty air.
"Four doors, one locked and blocked by a horrifying bottomless chasm, and another just an exit," George declared. "Right or left? And mind the statue's invisible scythe."
"Invisible scythe?" Blaise repeated in a strangled whisper. How many of the bones around here belonged to interlopers like them who hadn't been able to see and avoid the temple's traps?
"We should go right," Yellow decided. "It's the easiest door to get to, with the way the statue's spinning." He boldly walked in the direction he'd chosen with the twins close behind him.
With fear hammering in his heart, Blaise matched pace with the rest of the group. He hopped the scythe when the twins did, hearing it swish beneath him.
The next room was more of a hallway. Coffins of blue stone stood like sentinels on each side, with ten in all. Between two of the farther-off coffins floated a pair of…lanterns? Blaise squinted.
They were purplish wisps of smoke with cartoonish skull masks denoting their faces, each apparition clutching a jingling lantern in one vaguely-defined hand. He recognized them from an entry in the Hylian Bestiary. "Poes", they were called.
"Huh, this is new," Fred remarked. "I think the temple switched around a bit."
"Oh, lovely," Millicent groaned.
"It doesn't look too hard. Just some coffins and ghosts, right?" Yellow said optimistically. He unsheathed his sword and walked in with cautious steps. Blaise was ready to start edging after him when the coffin nearest Yellow rattled ominously.
The stone box's heavy lid fell to the ground with bang that sent tremors through the stone, revealing…
Yellow's relieved laugh was edged by a soft scream. "It's just a red gem," he remarked.
'Thank Merlin for that,' Blaise thought as he walked up to the lined-up coffins. 'I thought for sure it'd be another—'
Three steps forward on Yellow's part sent another coffin door crashing down. The boy had just enough time to shout, "ReDead!" before an unholy wail rent the air.
Blaise's body abruptly stopped following his commands. Deathly cold and instinctual fear had seized his muscles, turning them into blocks of unresponsive stone. 'RUN!' he screeched at his legs. They stood uselessly, keeping him rooted in place as the undead creature shuffled in his direction. He screamed silently into his own mind, his eyes forcibly locked on the shambling corpse's clacking teeth.
"Incendio! Die, you bloody corpse!" a female voice roared. Millicent had shaken off the effects of the ReDead's shriek first and now had her quivering wand leveled at the stunned creature's face.
Blaise blinked. The twins blinked. Yellow blinked, and then took his sword to the ReDead as an angry lumberjack might hack at a tree. He slashed and kept slashing, causing the monster to jerk in silent pain. After ten frantic swings, the corpse dropped to its knees and then fell face-first to the ground. A red gem sprang from its body and floated gently to the floor.
Yellow's lips twitched in a spasmodic, terrified smile. "That w-was scary." He collected the gem, poked at the prone ReDead a couple of times with his sword, and then looked back at the rest of the group. "Make s-sure you don't h-hit me with those fire spells, okay?" he called tremulously. Then he turned toward the next coffin.
All Blaise's overwhelmed mind could churn out was, 'And I thought this was the cowardly Potter?'
Draco yelped as he was suddenly hauled backward. The insult that sprang to his tongue died a quick death as he watched a massive guillotine blade crash down where he'd just been standing.
"I had a funny feeling," Red explained, releasing the back of Draco's robes. He watched the huge blade slide back up its wooden frame. "We're gonna have to play 'Taunt the Giant Knife' to get through here," he said with aggravating cheer. Draco wanted to hit him. "Green and I did that last time we were in one of these places. Those knives went side-to-side instead of up-and-down, but I think it's the same idea."
"This place has tried to kill us three times in four rooms!" Draco almost shouted in his ear. "Why are you so pleased about this, Potter?"
"The only other things that tried to kill us were that Grim Reaper statue and a Skulltula. Skulltulas are easier to fight than Moblins. You just kick 'em in the eyes and slash them up while they're stunned. Now, guillotines—" He grinned and pointed up toward the trap whose blade was once again hidden by a difference in ceiling heights. "—those are pretty brilliant. If I'm going to get sliced in half by a knife, it'd better be by a cool knife, and these are awesome."
"What? How can you…?" Draco attempted to understand the boy's enthusiasm and utterly failed. Red was just too Gryffindor for logic to apply. "Just go," he sighed. "Show us what to do and we'll try to keep up."
Red turned toward the hall of guillotines and set his shoulders. "I don't know any healing spells, so if you screw up, you're on your own."
Draco's imagination immediately called up a mental picture of himself split in two through the skull. He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head vigorously. "It's hard enough for me to do this as it is, Potter. Don't make me run screaming, because I will do it and I won't be ashamed. This place is infinitely worse than the last pit we got lost in."
"Yeah, I'd take a dark cave over zombies and invisible death traps any day," Red said with a strained chuckle. "Er, let's go." He took a half-step toward the trap in front of him, yanked his leg back when the blade tried to chop it off, and then dashed forward as the guillotine reeled back up.
"Ohhh no," Draco breathed. Why had he volunteered for this? It was his own fault he was here, and Father would be so disappointed in his decision-making skills if he lived through this, and dear Merlin—!
Draco leapt forward, stumbled back when the knife fell, and then threw himself forward. He looked over his shoulder at the rising blade and gave a hysterical little laugh. "I'm not dead," he murmured in disbelief.
The blade slung itself downward again as Crabbe, Goyle, and Dog followed his and Potter's example. That they managed to do it with far more calm composure than he had stabbed at his pride in a way few things could. He should have had more poise than his servants and his bloody dog, damn it!
Vowing to finish the rest of the trap-ridden hallway with the grace of a true Malfoy, he strode toward the next guillotine.
"Are you done being dramatic?" Potter asked when Draco finally escaped that hellish hallway. "I've been waiting here for ages."
"If I kill you…here, Potter, no one…will ever find the body," Draco growled between gasps of air as he fought to catch his breath. "It'll just blend in."
Dog, who had stopped next to him after exiting the corridor, growled lowly and thumped his owner with his heavy tail.
"I was making a friendly threat," Draco told him. "He's a famous relative! I can't kill him while he's still useful."
A rusty metal screech sounded behind him, causing his levity to turn to dread. He'd heard that sound before.
"Big monster somewhere," Potter declared, pulling out his sword. Even Draco's novice eye could tell the boy had no idea to hold the weapon.
"I do hope you have some sense of how a sword works," he muttered to Red.
"It's a sharp stick that you swing at things, Malfoy. I think I can handle—" The boy's eyes went wide and he dropped to the ground. "Duck!"
Draco had bent down the moment he'd seen Red's sudden panic, and he saw something large and square pass over his head. It shattered against the barred door behind him with the unpleasant sound of stone meeting metal.
Before he had time to wonder what the hell that had been, he saw another floor tile levitate up and toss itself at him. He had to skip sideways before it took off his foot. "The room is throwing things at us? How?" he demanded. Magic like this had to be guided, and he was pretty sure the only living things in this temple of horrors were the thirteen students and one dog trapped within.
Red bent backward to avoid a flying pot and then snapped, "Hylian magic, obviously! I'm the dumb one, and even I get it!"
"Well, excuse me for being more familiar with actual magic than whatever farce this is!" Draco had to duck and dodge two skulls and a torch as he spoke. "This is ridiculous!"
"Ow!" Goyle went tumbling by, launched by a floor tile to the back. He rolled, staggered to his feet, and then ran from the next slab of stone sent his way.
Draco heard something heavy scrape against the ground as it was lifted into the air, but he could only see pots, skulls, torches, and floor tiles. "There are invisible things, too!" he shrieked, half as a warning and half as an incredulous question. Like the room didn't have enough visible projectiles to choose from!
He ran like mad, zig-zagging at random to throw off the objects' aim. He didn't want to get squashed under some stupid block of stone that he couldn't even see. That was not the way a Malfoy was meant to die!
A mighty crash caused the floor to jolt under him. He kept running, though his lungs had begun to burn again. If he slowed down, one of those invisible things would get him. That certainty was what kept his legs pumping.
After four deafening sounds of collision, the room went quiet and still. Nothing more floated into the air, seen or unseen. It appeared that the malevolent room had run out of ammo.
With a jarring squeal, the doors unlocked themselves. Draco and his team wasted no time in fleeing the room before it could find a way to reload.
"That sucked," Crabbe panted. "Greg, you okay?"
"Yeah. I can walk," Goyle grunted.
Draco leaned heavily on Dog as he waited for his chest to stop aching from exertion. "Good," he said. He didn't want to have to worry about his servant collapsing in this death-temple, where nothing and no one would be able to help him.
"Hey, look!" Potter exclaimed. "Weird purple glasses! Those're probably useful."
Purple glasses? Draco gave the boy a funny look and then followed his line of sight. He couldn't deny the boy's assessment; whatever those objects on raised pedestals were, they very much resembled purple-lensed magenta spectacles with gold-accents and metallic red spikes.
Potter walked up to one of the pedestals, claimed the glasses atop it, and then slid them onto his face. The color immediately drained from his cheeks. "Oh hell," he gasped. "I can't believe I didn't die!"
Draco went to pick up a set of spectacles for himself. "What do you—?"
"STOP!" Potter commanded, and Draco froze. "There's a bunch of spikes in front of you," Red explained. "Take a few steps to the left, go forward five steps, head to the right a little, and then you're good."
Shaken, Draco obediently completed the clumsy little dance. On one step, he felt half of his foot hang off of the stone tile and over an invisible precipice. He took a deep, shaky breath and forced himself to keep going.
Once he was safe, Draco practically dove for a pair of glasses and pushed them onto his nose. The cave abruptly took on a new light.
Spikes. There were spikes everywhere. Clusters of wicked metal thorns, each protrusion as long as his forearm, decorated the room in a chaotic parody of a maze. To make things worse, pitfalls to who-knew-where had replaced several floor tiles, including the one he had nearly fallen through. His newly acquired magic glasses had sliced through the red haze and ancient illusory magic, revealing the temple's cruel secrets with crystal clarity.
"I want these," Potter said with longing. He'd pocketed his usual, silly-looking glasses in favor of the even odder-looking ones the cave had provided. "Is this how people see? With all the sharp lines, and everything?"
Draco glared at him. "Potter, you play Seeker in Quidditch. You catch the Snitch. How could you possibly do that if all you saw was fuzz?"
"Because the Snitch is shiny and it moves around, so it's easier to see." He rolled his eyes like this was obvious. "These glasses are brilliant, though. If we get to keep these after beating the monster guarding the exit, I'm wearing 'em every day." The boy wandered off to explore the rest of the small room, oblivious to Draco stewing behind him.
Draco wanted to curse something. He had lost to a blind Seeker? His Quidditch team had been losing to a player who could barely see his ball?
Muttering disgustedly under his breath in French, Draco snatched up three pairs of glasses and marched over to the rest of his group. How else could his morning go wrong today?
I'm juggling so many characters right now, guys. I wanted to put all the people whose (largely fanon) personalities I thought I could write in one place, and now I'm paying for it. Ohhh, I hope I'm not getting Blaise and Millicent and the twins terribly wrong...
The Lens (or rather, Lenses) of Truth work a tad differently in this fic than in Ocarina of Time. Namely, there's no magic-based time limit on usage, so they're essentially Hylian Spectrespecs now.