Chapter 46 - The Temple HP

Harry and Ron sat in silence for a long moment by the side of the open pit.

Ron swore.

"Climbing gloves," he said. "All we needed to do was use the climbing gloves to swing along the wall. We wouldn't have had to touch any of these bloody slabs."

Harry looked at his old friend. Ron's face was pale and drawn with anguish.

"Let's do it then," he said in a calm voice. "Hermione still needs to be rescued. We can't bring Lavender back, but we can finish the job for her. She saved us from the skrewts to do this."

Ron stood and put on his climbing gloves without a word. Harry did likewise. They moved to opposite sides of the corridor and placed their hands on the walls.

"Thanks for your help, Lavender," Harry said.

Ron grunted.

Harry and Ron made their way along the corridor walls by swinging hand-over-hand. Ron said nothing.

The longer Ron was silent, the more convinced Harry became his friend was blaming him for Lavender's death. Harry had not ordered her to step on the trap. He had not even suggested that should be their course of action. And, if anything, she had come with them to help Ron.

But he was the head of the Auror Office — this was his operation. He was in charge; he had to be responsible. Once again, he had led his friends into danger and to their deaths. He did not know how he was supposed to live with that. He wondered how the Old One, Ambrose, lived with sending people he knew, even loved, to do battle with the Alterworld, century after century.

As Harry and Ron reached the end of the hexagonal paving, they dropped to their feet and carried on along the corridor.

"Is it my eyes or is it getting darker?" Ron asked, several turns further down the passage.

Harry had just been thinking the same. Their wands were still working, but the light did not seem to penetrate the gloom. It was as though the darkness was becoming more visible. It was thicker, no longer a mere absence of light. The stones of the walls and the flags of the floor seemed darker in tone than before, as if drinking in the light and leaving less for their eyes.

"It's not you: it definitely seems dark now," Harry confirmed. "It's getting colder as well."

Examining the walls, they found them wet with condensation. They continued with care through the dank passageway, which was now sloping downwards as they went.

The two men looked at each other.

"Did you hear something?" Ron asked.

"Sounded like a voice."

"More than one, I thought."

"Well, we have to keep going," Harry said. "Let's stay quiet, shall we?"

As they progressed, it became darker and wetter. There was a pervasive smell of mould. From time to time, the sound of voices hovering on the edge of hearing came to them on the cold, damp air. The floor sloped more steeply the further they went.

At length, they reached a set of steps carved into the solid rock beneath them. The stone blocks of the corridor walls gave way to a roughly chiselled tunnel. The treads of the stairs were smooth and dished, as if worn by passing feet over many years.

Their footfalls echoed, tapping and shuffling away in front of them down the stairway. Mixed in with these echoes were the reverberations of distant voices, clearer and more frequent the further they went.

The stairs emerged from the tunnel into an open space. They could not see far, but the sound of the echoes told of a huge cavern or chasm. The worn steps clung to a wall on their right, the yawning darkness to their left. The edge of the carved stairway fell away vertically into the sullen black air. They pressed themselves close to the slick, wet rock.

A distant glow emerged from the gloom. It flickered like firelight but promised no warmth. As they went on, it resolved itself into a watery blue-white glimmer issuing from an arched doorway.

Harry and Ron approached with care. Harry found he was sweating. It was not the warm sweat of exertion, but a cold perspiration brought on by a mounting sense of dread.

As they neared the archway in tentative paces, it was clear the chanting voices they had heard came from within. They stood beside the simple arch carved into the living rock. The speech borne echoing to their ears was in no language they knew or wanted to know. Harsh and guttural, it was a tongue from long ago and far away. The words seemed to speak of hatred and pain, of anger and horrors.

Harry gestured to Ron. On the further side of the archway, the path they were on continued into the darkness. Harry signed that if they passed across outside the doorway, they could carry on. Neither of them knew where the passage would take them, but they would not be passing through the arch towards the chanting voices. All they had to do was to cross the entrance; step into the pool of light without being seen.

Through a series of hand signals known to all aurors, they decided they would walk across the doorway slowly and steadily, hoping not to draw attention. In their dark clothes, they could pass by without standing out against the dark background, as long as they did not turn their faces towards the chill light within. Neither of them wanted to see what might be through the archway.

They walked smoothly across the doorway, averting their gaze. Harry had a sudden shock remembering Ron's red hair. It was too late to do anything different: they had to walk on and hope for the best. They passed the far edge of the arch. There was no cry, no shriek, no alarm. Harry looked at Ron. They crept a few more metres, then hurried away.

The cavern still yawned, unseen and untrammelled, on their left and the path carried on along the ledge ahead of them. They re-lit their wand lights. The steps had ended, and the walkway continued on the level. There were a few slopes up and down, but a hundred metres on they came to another arched doorway.

This arch was smaller than the first. There were no lights inside and no sounds of voices.

"This might get us through to the far side of the other chamber, temple, whatever," said Ron.

"You think we were supposed to go that way?"

"I hope so. This path just feels like it goes down forever — to the centre of the earth, or worse."

"So, we're going inside?" Harry asked.

Ron grabbed him and marched him through the doorway.

"We haven't got forever," Ron snapped. "I have to find Hermione…"

"We could have looked further along the ledge," said Harry, turning. "It might have… oh."

The arch and its doorway had gone. In their place was a blank stone wall.

"I guess we're going this way," Ron said.

The darkness was not so thick here. Their wands lit up a rectangular stone chamber. It was the size of a classroom at Hogwarts, with wide stone benches at either side between columns carved with intertwined serpents. At the far end was another arched doorway, opening into blackness.

"Snakes," Ron noted. "Pity you're not a parselmouth any more."

"They're just decoration, Ron. It doesn't mean there'll be snakes."

"No. Probably bloody spiders, knowing my luck. Or vampires. That anti-vampirism treatment was bloody agony, you know."

"I know, Ron," Harry said. "I've known a few of our guys go through it. Even Ginny was worried about you."

"Let's try not to get killed then. Like, by whatever's through that door."

They walked to the other end of the chamber and passed through the arch. This one did not disappear behind them.

It opened out in to a round area the size of a cathedral. The floor stepped down towards the centre of the space, like an amphitheatre. They increased the light from their wands. This chamber was immense. A colonnade ran around the outside, and a domed ceiling soared high above them. Their lights did not reach right into the dome nor across to the far side of the arena.

They could see the central area, which was dominated by a monumental stone block flanked by two huge stone bowls. Harry remembered the stone tables below a house in Hull where they had witnessed the slaughter of one of their agents. This was a sacrificial altar.

"Round the edge or through the middle?" Harry asked.

"Straight across is quicker," Ron answered.

"More exposed, though."

"Let's go for quick. If there's anything here, it's going to find us anyway."

They set off across the open amphitheatre.

"Harry?"

They were almost at the stone block in the centre of the temple, as Harry thought of it. The slab was bigger than it had seemed: Hagrid would not have been able to see the top. It was wider than it was high, and longer than it was wide. Harry looked at Ron. Ron was holding his wand aloft and staring up into the cupola above them.

"What is it?" Harry asked.

"I think there's something alive up in the dome."

"Best not to shine a light on it and disturb it, then."

Ron lowered his wand.

"Let's keep moving," Harry advised.

Walking down the terraced seating had been awkward. The fall of each step had been over a metre. Too high for a simple step down and too hard to keep jumping down. Going up the other side would be a slog. It was not something Harry would want to do while they were being chased. With an out-of-shape Ron, it would be even harder.

Harry did not know what Ron had seen in the dome. His mind went back to the 'Reddish House Massacre' and the nest of vampires they had found there. If vampires attacked them here, they would have no chance. Harry had rowan stakes — they had intended to meet a couple of vampires, after all. It would have been crazy to come unprepared. But a family of vampires would overwhelm them in seconds.

Harry's morale was already low after losing Lavender. Putting Ron in danger again was weighing on his spirit. Thinking they had found Hermione, only to discover it was a fake, had kicked his feet out from under him. Now this endless dungeon with a threat around every corner seemed an impossible task.

They passed the recumbent stone monolith and its vast bowls, crossed the flat central area of the temple, and stood at the feet of the terraced steps.

"Are you OK to do this, Ron?" Harry asked.

"It'll be great exercise," he replied. "I'll tell you one thing, though: I'm going on a diet when I get back. I can't get away with eating everything in sight like I used to."

"We're not growing lads any more."

"I am," Ron contradicted. "Just in the wrong directions."

As they stepped up onto the first tier of the stone stands, they heard an ominous rustling from the dome high above. Harry drew a short sword from his backpack. Ron followed suit.

"Keep moving, Ron," Harry whispered. "I'll watch out as we go. You just concentrate on climbing unless I say. And don't forget your breathing."

"Stopping breathing's the last thing I plan to do."

The two men had climbed a quarter of the way up from the central floor when the first wave of the attack hit them.