Chapter Six
The Gap Between
They'd planned it all out.
They were going to do it in the entrance hall. There was more than enough space, and if something went wrong, an explosion—or worse—wasn't likely to do any serious damage to the castle. Hopefully. Harry had cleared the rubble and dust for a circle a hundred feet across. At the center of this circle, he would be performing the Otherworldly Ordinance.
Ron and Hermione were with him, as was Dumbledore, who watched the goings on with an air of almost boyish excitement.
" 'Step one,' " recited Hermione, reading from the Book, which rested on the large, flat hunk of stone they were using as a makeshift table. " 'Use chalk to draw the assorted rings, diamonds and star, and carve the runic script, either by hand or with a spell…' Shapes first, Harry."
Harry spent the next hour following Hermione's instructions for copying the diagram out of the Book while she and Dumbledore debated magical theory; Ron had given Harry a look, and Harry had grinned. As the hour progressed, the shapes gradually resembled those he found in Voldemort's warehouse two months before. First was a large circle in orange chalk. Second was a purple ring. The third sub-step, or step 1c, had him draw five red diamonds, each beginning from the circle, protruding past the ring and pointing toward the middle. Fourthly, Harry outlined a large, red, five-pointed star in the exact center, its arms reaching out towards the diamonds. After that, he created a second purple ring, this one within the star, touching the interior angles between the arms. For step six, Harry found the center point of the entire diagram, marking it with an orange dot, and proceeded to draw straight lines past the interior ring and up each arm of the star before connecting them to the tip of each diamond, effectively dividing the whole layout into fifths.
The seventh step was the most time consuming: He had to fill in the two rings with an ancient runic script that he didn't understand nor recognize. The script had to be carved from stone—the primary reason they hadn't done this out on the grounds. The Book said it could have been done with magic, but Harry didn't feel confident enough with his new, overeager wand to carve elegant script along inch-wide rings.
Steps 1h and 1i—Almost finished!—required a fair bit of artistic ability, of which he possessed little. Dean Thomas would have been perfect for the job, but it was Harry, not Dean, who was forced to trace, in Tyrian-purple paint, a series of five glyphs along the interior of the smaller ring. " 'Take care not to step on, cover or conceal the painted sigils at any time' during the spell," reminded Hermione. After that, he then painted five more glyphs, these much larger than before, along the interior of the outer ring, each positioned between a pair of diamonds and occupying its own fifth of the overall design.
Tired and sticky, Harry clambered to his feet and dropped the brush into the bucket of paint. He wiped the sweat from his forehead, wincing when some ran into his eye.
"Perhaps a break?" suggested Dumbledore kindly.
Harry shook his head. "I want to finish."
"Don't overdo it, mate," said Ron. "This thing isn't going anywhere."
"No, but every minute I waste is another minute for Voldemort. I'll rest when it's done."
His friends exchanged worried looks, but Dumbledore held his gaze. Once again, Harry wondered if the dead could perform Legilimency.
"This is, as they say, your show, Harry," said the old wizard. "What is the next step?" As they'd gone through the process with Dumbledore plenty of times before, Harry knew the question was rhetorical.
Harry looked to Hermione for direction. "The potion, right?"
"I believe so, let me check… 'Step two. From outside the runes, brew an Invigoration Draft.' Well, we've done that already, and added a drop of Everlasting Elixir… 'Step three. Manually place the phial at the very center of the star, where the lines intersect.' And you'll want to do these steps by hand, Harry, else it won't work properly."
Harry retrieved the phial and placed it at the center, mindful not to step on any of the painted glyphs. "Next are the weird bits, yeah?"
"Mhmm. 'Step four. Starting at the top diamond'—that's the easternmost one, Harry—'and going clockwise, place the following items manually within the diamonds.' "
Hogwarts faced west, so Harry started with the diamond farthest from the front doors; there he placed the dirigible plums—To help the imbiber believe in difficult-to-understand concepts. Proceeding clockwise, Harry then deposited the rest of the ingredients: five entwined Thestral tail hairs, to symbolize a world unseen; a tuft of knotgrass, to symbolize the tying together of two worlds; a handful of Diricawl feathers, to allow the imbiber to transfer at will; and the Re'em blood, to hold together the imbiber's form during such transfers.
" 'Step five: Once the items are in place, paint a layer of olive oil into the carved runic script within both rings.' "
Harry knew this part was coming, of course, but he couldn't prevent the groan at the thought of more brushwork. He retrieved a clean brush, this one finer than the last, and a bottle of oil. Careful not to step on or otherwise disturb the glyphs he'd painted before, he crouched and added a thin layer of oil to each and every foreign word he'd carved.
Afterward, he stared at the assortment of chalky shapes and lines and purple figures, his hands trembling just enough to irritate him. The final step…
"The fire," breathed Harry.
"You've only got one shot at this," said Ron, standing beside Harry. "You mess it up, you start over, and you don't have enough Re'em blood for another try. You'd have to go all the way to America or Asia for more, and that could take weeks. Who knows what trouble Voldemort will have caused by then."
Incredulous, Harry stared at him. "Thanks, Ron, I needed a reminder."
Ron grinned at him. "You always succeed when things are most dire. I'm just helping you out."
"I couldn't stop Voldemort eleven years ago, Ron, and things were pretty dire then."
"Yeah, well, things are more dire now, aren't they? You're welcome." Ron clapped Harry on the back before retreating to a rather amused Hermione and Dumbledore.
"Concentrate, Harry," instructed Dumbledore. "If you could do it once, you can surely do it again. You are simply replicating past results."
Hermione gave Harry an encouraging smile, though he could tell by the way she was wringing her hands at her waist that she was worried.
Harry turned to the Ordinance; it was now or never.
The oil would last for but a moment; he'd have to be quick.
He conjured some fire and lit the first ring.
His wand was steady, his thoughts focused on the sheer possibility that awaited him.
The fire was receding—
He spoke the words—!
The ring of flame roared to full life once again, hotter and brighter than before. Harry waited, breath pent. But the fire didn't go out.
"Well done, dear boy!" cheered Dumbledore, applauding.
"Told you, mate!"
"Just once more, Harry."
Harry aimed his wand at the second ring; it was difficult to see through the Gubraithian Fire of the first, but he had to light them in the right order. He took a deep breath to steady himself. Then he repeated the process, more confidently this time: He lit the inner ring with conjured fire, then quickly enchanted it to burn indefinitely.
The spell didn't take.
The fire fizzled out—
Harry incanted the charm a second time—!
A single spark reignited, and the second ring sprang to life once more.
Harry would have cried with relief if his attention hadn't immediately been arrested by a sudden activity. The glyphs glowed brightly with violet light and pulsed rapidly, their luminance engulfing the five diamond-contained ingredients. The orange lines of chalk sparked. From behind the flames came a deep red light that flashed just once. Then the Ordinance fell dark and silent; even the eternal, undying flames had perished.
The smell of burnt matter assaulted Harry's nostrils, the five offerings black and smoking, totally destroyed. At the center of the star, where the blue Invigoration Draft had once been, was now a phial of crimson fluid, which churned like a vortex within the glass.
He turned to study the faces of his friends. Ron looked awestruck, Dumbledore excited, and Hermione glared at the red potion with mistrust.
"It worked," declared Ron needlessly. "See, Hermione, it didn't explode!"
She turned her glare on him. "The lack of an explosion doesn't mean that fluid is safe to drink! Please don't drink it, Harry!"
Dumbledore looked lost in thought and said nothing.
Harry frowned. "Hermione, you knew I would follow through with this."
"I know but, but—!" She hung her head, recognizing the futility of her objections. Her posture went limp, and she looked up. Demure, she said, "You'd better drink it soon—it'll lose its potency in an hour."
Harry retrieved the phial, no longer needing to avoid stepping on the glyphs or lines or whatnot. The glass was warm to the touch, and the stopper was especially hot, but Harry held tight. He'd have to drink it within the hour, and while the Book didn't mention anything about it losing potency the longer it remained unconsumed, Harry didn't want to take any chances; Voldemort had drunk it immediately, so Harry would as well. He unstopped the little container and gestured to the rest. "Bottoms up!" Then he downed the whole thing in one great gulp.
"How do you feel?" asked Hermione anxiously, hands still wringing furiously.
Harry belched. "Fine."
He felt it all at once. His chest began to itch, and as he rubbed at it, the friction seemed to ignite something; all of a sudden, his insides felt like they were on fire. He couldn't restrain the scream, the sensation not unlike the Cruciatus Curse. He scrabbled madly at his chest, the Resurrection Stone, sweaty and slimy from being lodged in Harry's palm the past two hours, slipped from his hand, snuffing out the alarmed cries of his ghostly spectators.
Harry opened his eyes a moment later to find himself on the floor and without a memory of getting there. He blinked owlishly, eyes narrowed in the glare of the setting sun through the wilting doorway of Hogwarts' entrance hall. Sunset? He must've been on the floor for hours.
Voldemort hadn't collapsed as he, Harry, had, a fact that worried Harry painfully.
Groggy, he sat upright and collected himself, and fixed his shirt, which he'd torn open in his fury, and gathered his wand and the Stone, which had skittered a distance away. He turned it over until his friends reappeared.
"Harry!" screeched Hermione, hurrying to give him a semi-physical hug. "Oh, I knew this was a bad idea! How do you feel?"
"Let him breathe a bit, Hermione," said Ron. "You do look awful, mate."
Again, Dumbledore said nothing. Concern was evident on his face, and his mouth was set in a frown, but any thoughts he might have had he did not utter.
"I'm alright," said Harry, who still sat on the floor, Hermione kneeling protectively beside him and, indeed, a fair bit over him as well. "Honestly. We knew that was going to happen—it's just like the Author said in his Book."
Hermione tutted. "I really don't care for the trust you give to this mysterious Author," she remarked moodily.
"He hasn't been wrong yet, Hermione," Ron pointed out.
She harrumphed and crossed her arms, a glimmer of worry still shining in her eyes.
Softly, Dumbledore said, "There's naught left to do but transport yourself to the neighboring world. We'll learn soon enough if the Author's accounts are true."
Hermione looked as if she were about to object, but a meaningful look from Harry silenced her. He knew the moment she conceded: She looked away, past the slouching door and to the early twilight. The remnants of sunlight passing through her lent her an angelic appearance, and Harry was struck again by the mysterious familiarity of her knitted gray cardigan and purple silk shirt. He looked away.
In Hermione's stubborn silence, Ron took the lead. "Just stick to the plan, Harry: Rent a room at the Three Broomsticks as a temporary headquarters while you perform a séance—"
"Reconnaissance, Ronald."
"Right, that. And if you can't summon us with the Stone over there, come back here and tell us what you've learned."
"I remember, Ron," Harry said with a laugh. "I was there when we finalized the plan, or have you forgotten?"
"Sure," replied Ron, grinning. "Just making sure you hadn't forgotten, old man."
Harry's mouth fell open. "Old—?"
"Ronald, don't antagonize the poor man," added Hermione, glancing wryly at Harry. "He's liable to break something at his age."
Harry gawped at her.
A polite cough drew their attention. Notoriously ancient Dumbledore was smiling, hands clasped before him, eyes glittering.
All three adopted sheepish expressions. "Sorry, Professor," said Ron meekly.
"It's quite alright, Mr. Weasley. I haven't been your headmaster for a rather long time." He looked down to Harry, who still hadn't gotten to his feet. "Whenever you're ready, Harry."
Harry finally stood. From the floor, everyone looked silly and carefree, but at eye level they were all rather solemn. "I'll just… get ready. See you in a few minutes." He slipped the Stone into his pocket, and he was alone once more.
Harry took a moment to exhale a few deep, fortifying breaths in the excruciating silence before hurrying to the Hufflepuff common room. He'd had his things prepared for weeks, ever since the plan had been made. He threw on his coat, swapped his slippers for his feet-jabbing boots, scooped up Hermione's beaded bag—which had been subject to some thorough cleaning out—and hefted a jingling bag of enough gold Galleons to last him all winter. Most necessities, like clothes, potions, dried foods, et cetera, had been stuffed into the beaded bag, which hopefully had enough empty space in its belly to keep from regurgitating things, but if Harry had need of something, he'd have plenty of money for surprise purchases. And besides, this was just for his initial foray into this other world; he'd be back soon enough, at least to restock on supplies if nothing else.
Upon double checking that his wands and the Stone were in his pockets, and sparing the Hufflepuff common room one last nostalgic glance, Harry exited the castle and aimed his feet toward the ruins of Hogsmeade.
Hermione had told him—with no small dose of thinly veiled skepticism—that Apparating between worlds wasn't like normal Apparition. It couldn't be. The primary difference was that if you Apparated to another world—"supposedly," Hermione had spat—you would appear in the same place you left, just one world over. You couldn't, for example, Disapparate from London in one world and reappear in Brighton in the next. They'd chosen Hogsmeade as Harry's primary point of transition for this reason; Hogwarts was, ordinarily, protected against Apparition and Disapparition, and Hogsmeade was within easy walking distance. He'd just pop to and fro in shadowy alleyways when nobody was the wiser.
When considering the limited distance one could Apparate, Harry wondered if the two Hogsmeades would be close to one another or far away, cross-dimensionally speaking.
One had to be especially cautious with this method of Apparition, however. Hermione had given him an example: "Say you Disapparated from an empty field, but the corresponding destination in the other world had been paved over and had had a house built on it. You could end up occupying the same space as a wall or refrigerator, which would be unfortunate to say the least."
The thought of Apparating himself into an unsuspecting family's freezer, like a magical mafia movie, had made Harry's skin crawl.
He strolled along Hogsmeade's main street. Snow blanketed everything evenly; the only imperfections were the footprints Harry left in his wake. It was silent and rather surreal. Had this been a Hogsmeade visit during the schoolyear, students would have been swarming the shops and the Three Broomsticks, and the locals would have been out and about, chatting them up. Harry could recall occasions that he'd seen a student's parents and younger siblings run into the street to greet them on their monthly visits. Now those people were only distant memories.
Harry was just approaching the Three Broomsticks when a distant, rather unidentifiable noise caught his attention, and Harry, startled, slipped on something, ejecting some hard, flat object from the snow and sending him sprawling in the white. The tavern's sign, previously hidden beneath a quarter inch of ice, shot into the empty street. Cursing his luck, Harry, numb from the cold, clambered to his feet and looked around. He didn't know what had made the noise, but it was gone now. He continued on.
He glanced down the adjacent alley with a trained eye. It was wide enough to walk along but narrow enough to avoid everyday traffic. It would do nicely. He fished the Stone out of his pocket and turned it thrice. "What do you think of this spot?"
Three pairs of eyes studied the gap between buildings.
"Bit close to the tavern, isn't it?" wondered Ron.
Harry shrugged. "It'd be the nearest place to come and go."
"But if you were caught…," said Hermione.
"It would only appear as if Harry had Disapparated," supplied Dumbledore. "I assume there are no visible or audible differences between ordinary Apparition and this?"
"So the Book says," answered Hermione, giving Harry a searching look.
Harry looked away. "Then are we agreed?"
"It's your quest, Harry," said Ron. "It's your decision."
"Yeah, but…"
Dumbledore's ghostly hand rested gently and without definition on Harry's shoulder. "We trust your judgement, Harry. If this feels right to you, then of course we are in agreement."
Harry couldn't prevent a smile. "Wish me luck." And he practically skipped into the alley, once again the excitement of possibility bubbling within him. He turned toward them, gave them a thumbs up, and turned on the spot.
Nothing happened, except he'd sprayed some snow with a twist of his boot.
"Remember the Three D's, Harry!" encouraged Ron.
The Three D's! How long has it been since we learned that? Let's see… Destination, Determination and… Defecation? Destitution? Depolarization? Ah, bollocks, I forget!
Harry concentrated hard on the alley beside the Three Broomsticks. He visualized it—turned on the spot—Disapparated—and reappeared at the end of the alley! He looked up, grinning in triumph to find his friends shaking their heads at him.
"Oh, come on!" whinged Harry. "I nearly had it that time!"
"Obviously not," said Hermione, and Harry thought he heard a note of satisfied exasperation in her voice, as if she were waiting for him to give up on the fool's errand.
Determined to prove her wrong, Harry tried again. And again. For five minutes he tried—ten minutes—fifteen!—to no avail. His toes were numb, and he'd long since stuffed his hands in his pockets, still gripping the Stone; he imagined he looked a right fool stumbling about the alley the way he did. The others couldn't feel the cold, and one among their number grew openly smug as time went on.
Perhaps the distance between worlds was too great, he thought. Maybe that was why he couldn't manage the journey; he refused to consider the other possibility, that he was chasing some wild goose.
Harry was desperate. He'd wound up on the roof of the Three Broomsticks once, slipped and fallen on his arse twice—not counting the earlier bit with the sign—been sick four times, and he ached all over. His cheeks were flushed, though from frustration, embarrassment or the temperature, who could say. After yet another fruitless attempt, he screamed in rage and began kicking at the snow in the alley, as if it were the weather's fault for his failure.
As he went to strike a rubbish bin, he heard again the queer noise from before—a glass- or crystal-like tinkling. He managed to catch himself before he slipped again, but his flailing hand punched through a window of the building next door, the glass cutting up his palm and forearm. The sharp, bloody angles of glass reflected his pain.
Hermione gasped.
"You alright, mate?"
"Why don't we try again tomorrow?" suggested Dumbledore. "We ought to get that treated—"
"No!" snarled Harry at them. "I'm going to do this! I'm going to do it because it's real, because it's not a bunch of shit, it can't be!"
He envisioned Hogsmeade once more, though this time it wasn't one consumed by snow, desolate and abandoned; this time he envisioned an unbroken Hogsmeade, and when he turned on the spot, he nearly spun himself in a circle. He felt the familiar darkness of Apparition take him, but this time was different.
Instead of being pressed hard from all directions, he felt like he was flying, shooting across a void toward some distant destination that was both infinitely far away and within arm's reach. Behind him the place he'd left and before him the place he was going, Harry was trapped between the two in a blackness darker than the farthest depths of space. It was cold in this gap between, colder than a Scottish winter in the mountains, and Harry had a sudden fear of losing himself within it. What if he was lost, shooting aimlessly across the vast emptiness? How long had it been already? There was no time here, no ever-present force guiding all things to their inevitable conclusions, but rather a timeless twilight that never ended. He tried to call for help, but he had no voice; he tried to gasp, but there was no air. He was confined to this bleak nothingness.
And then there was a line—a white line that streaked infinitely in either direction, left and right. Harry was rocketing toward it at an impossible speed, though the line never grew larger nor brighter as he neared it. In fact, Harry wondered if he were even moving at all, or if things in this space were so vastly, incomprehensibly huge that perspective meant nothing. He wondered what the line was, what it represented. He thought he understood: a new universe, one just as old as the one he'd left behind. He'd raged against the universe, cursed it, and now it was punting him toward another: I've had enough, it was saying, he's your problem now. With his revelation, Harry felt the gap between sigh—or had it been his own consciousness?
The line drew nearer, or Harry did, and he glided within like he might slip between the sheets of a bed, and for a moment everything was white—then the line vomited him out with a bang like hammer-struck metal—and there was pain.
It was in a dark and narrow corridor that he found himself, alone and naked and with none of his possessions. His glasses, his wands, everything he owned—all missing.
He was dizzy, lightheaded; he felt as if he might fall over any moment. The heat of the compression left him hot and sticky, and a bead of sweat ran down the length of his nose. In contrast, the cool air drifting across his nude form was colder because of it; he shivered, and his genitals huddled closer to his body for warmth. The sound of voices reached his ears, and he was standing in something damp. Worst of all, he couldn't feel his right foot, and the corresponding leg felt as if it were on fire.
Harry needed help. He called out, but the words sounded unintelligible.
He squinted, trying to find meaning in the blurred shapes and colors. Light lay at one end of the passageway, darkness at the other. His questing fingers found a hard, rough surface, and with difficulty he followed it into the light. His bare feet found dryer ground, though they stumbled over something metallic and hollow like an empty rubbish bin.
Then he emerged onto what must have been a street. A piercing shriek made him jump. Voices erupted around him. He barely had the presence of mind to cover himself with his hands.
"Bugger me backward!"
"Mummy, why's that man got no clothes? Hasn't he any money? Shouldn't he—?"
"—your eyes, dear, quickly now! And no peeking—!"
"—his foot, d'you see?"
"Good Lord! There're children about, you know!"
"—daft fool, with his bits exposed for everyone to see—"
"He's off his trolley, walking about like that!"
Harry turned here and there, trying to locate the nearest voice to ask for assistance, but he felt off, like he was balanced on a ledge, with the empty sky below him, and he was about to fall into its endless, blue depths. The Earth had become flat and tilted for him and him alone, and he was struggling not to tip over. He staggered once, and he felt a coarse brick wall scrape painfully against his hip and posterior.
A hand landed on his shoulder, and a voice sounded in his ear. "Blimey, mate, can I call somebody for you? A friend, a healer?"
Harry tried to answer, but all that exited his mouth was a slur. He felt fabric being draped around him. Then the flat Earth tilted the other way and pain erupted along his back and head. He was only just aware of voices shouting, though if the words were hexes, oaths, or pleas for help, he did not know.
Author's Note
So there we go. Forty thousand words to get to the jump itself. I hope it's been worth the buildup. Make sure you're strapped in, cos the ride's just going round the first turn, and there are plunges and loop-the-loops to come. Why am I using this metaphor when I'm not a fan of roller coasters? XD
That last scene is one of my favorites of the whole story (including parts I'm envisioning but have yet to write), that and the opening scene of next chapter. What did you think? I'd love to hear your thoughts!
