Chapter 52 - Sacrifice
Iris finally collapsed into the sheets of their room in Privet Drive, her every limb still shivering from what had happened. After she had finally somehow managed to escape the shadow realm focusing on a specific emotion she was pretty sure nobody ever should, she hadn't dared to re-enter it at least until the effects of whatever happened to her had faded somewhat. Instead, for the lack of any idea where she was or how to get home, she had made her way back by casting the Imperius on the first taxi driver unfortunate enough to stop.
When the clash of light and dark had burned through her body, and more worryingly, her mind, she had felt like she was on the verge of becoming a Lethifold for good. Only by focusing on her self-loathing in that moment had she managed to procure enough shadows to squeeze herself out into the regular plane.
Lying there, buried in the old bedsheets, she kept staring, mind still blank. Slowly her emotions made a return, one after the other. Only once she felt the tingling fade entirely, she dared to re-engage her mind light. The moment she did so, her eyes went wide.
What the hell had she been doing? She'd... attacked a national celebrity, in front of hundreds of witnesses, and abducted him into the shadow realm, only to immediately lose him. And she had no idea how to find him again. In essence...
Iris took a shaky breath. She'd really rather not think about this too much. No matter how she looked at it, she had—
No. What was more important was she still had no idea what happened to Harry. But, she admitted, at least, she still remembered. She still had time. She had managed to stop his ritual. If that actually had been what he had been doing.
But she still had no idea where to continue. Whatever had happened, the only people who knew were Myrtle and Harry. Myrtle was apparently gone, at least, she hadn't seen the diary anywhere, and Lockhart hadn't mentioned anything either. And she didn't remember, because... well it probably wasn't like a memory charm, at least, it didn't feel anything like it. Neither Greengrass nor Snape had detected anything else, and she did have memories of the time anyway. Just that they were memories of her being inside the room, instead of what Myrtle had been doing with her body. But...
Iris sighed, got up, and noticed that the sun was already high in the sky. A glance at the clock revealed that it was 11 am. She hadn't slept a wink, but apparently, a lot of time had passed while she had been lying in her bed in a stupor, trying to recover from yesterday's events. Reluctantly, she removed her robes which she had still been wearing ever since Hogwarts as she had apparently been too out of it to change on the train. Instead, she put on some grey shorts and one of Dudley's old black t-shirts that even she had almost grown out of. After a second she realized that she had nowhere to hide her wand. However, she guessed that she wouldn't be needing it out here anyway. She could handle herself without her wand just fine.
Iris made her way down the stairs, and through the living room, pointedly ignoring Petunia in the kitchen, who returned the favor. Pushing open the entrance to Privet Drive No. 4, she began wandering down the street aimlessly, until she found a swing-set in a nearby park and sat down on it. Iris was just idly swinging back and forth, unwilling to let her thoughts circle any further into directions that would inevitably only cause her more despair. The summer sun was beating down on her, causing a drop of sweat to run down her forehead. A familiar hoot announced the arrival of Harry's owl, dropping yet another Daily Prophet on her lap.
Gilderoy Lockhart Killed in Lethifold Attack
Nation mourns Hero's Death
Out of morbid curiosity, Iris flipped open the newspaper to the first page. A full-page picture showed Lockhart standing atop a small podium in the middle of Flourish and Blotts, when suddenly a dark shadow grew beneath his feet, and a distorted shadowy hand reached out of it, and grabbed his ankle. The shadows spread outwards like tendrils, reaching up his legs, and causing his captured leg to start to turn blue, until he was suddenly yanked downwards, and disappeared into the abyss of shadows.
"I've never seen anything like it. It was like a ghost. None of the usual signs, it just attacked out of nowhere!" stated Auror Shacklebolt in the wake of the attack that tragically claimed the life of one of the most beloved wizards in the country, right in the middle of Diagon Alley. Luckily, none of the other over one-hundred-fifty witches and wizards who had been present were injured during the attack. Eyewitnesses claim that the Lethifold appeared inside Flourish and Blotts at quarter-past-eight, and immediately attacked Mister Lockhart, and horrifyingly managed to completely devour him before even the first Auror managed to cast a Patronus Charm.
The ministry department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures reached out to assure us that this is very unusual behavior for Lethifolds and they usually require several minutes to fully devour a defenseless wizard. And Gilderoy Lockhart had been anything but. Auror Shacklebolt has assured this reporter that investigations are ongoing and that there is no need to be worried about the same happening to anyone else. As you can imagine, this reporter found that claim hard to believe in light of the evidence you can see in this very picture. Are we all in danger? We at the Daily Prophet urge the Ministry for immediate clarification about how such a thing could have occurred, and how it can be prevented from happening again, especially right in the center of the places we should feel the safest. See page 2-3 for the Life and Works of Gilderoy Lockhart. See page 4 for more information about Lethifolds.
Iris stared blankly at the page after she had finished reading it. That... She hadn't completely comprehended the fact before, but now that the headline was staring her in the face, it wasn't letting her go. She had just killed someone. Well, technically, not really. Rather... he'd probably wish that she had. She couldn't even imagine living like that, slowly losing your mind to nothingness and hunger, all the feelings, emotions, your thoughts, everything that made you... well, you... just fading away. And not even realizing or caring about it as it happened. She supposed, in a way, it was a sort of peaceful end. Well, that is, if it were an actual end. But unless someone pulled a stunt like in Laughing with Lethifolds, or she somehow managed to find him and let him out...
Should she even? Would anything still be left after all this time? And even if there was, what would she do then? She couldn't allow him to complete his ritual, but also—
"What's gotten your knickers in a twist? You look like someone died."
Iris looked up at the voice only to find the last person she wanted to talk to right now. Dudley Dursley.
"Go away," Iris replied blankly, hoping he would get the hint.
"Ooh, prickly. This about your brother? What's up with him anyway? He still stuck in detention or what?"
Iris clamped her jaw shut and stared at the ground, no response forthcoming.
If only.
"Bet you got him in trouble again, huh?"
The iron chains of the swing creaked as her fists made a good attempt at crushing them barehanded. Dudley was just lounging against the red merry-go-round, or at least, attempting to, as the metal contraption kept starting to turn once he rested his weight against it. So instead, he climbed inside it and sat down, slowly rotating between facing her, and away from her. Iris was already starting to regret not having brought her wand.
"Soo... when's he coming back?" Dudley asked curiously.
The merry-go-round creaked as he spun to face her again.
"Like you care," Iris said, her voice taking an edge.
"Whoa!" Dudley backpedaled at her tone, shooting her a look. "What happened to you, Cryris?"
The name had come out as if by habit, it hadn't even sounded like he was trying to rile her up. But any reaction that either of them might have expected to the sound of the name, never came.
Iris' gaze dropped back to her feet, swinging them back and forth to increase her momentum slightly. His face spun away from her, then, with a slow creak, came to face her yet again. His expression was that of hesitation, as if he was unsure where he had intended to take this little chat in the first place, and it had still gotten derailed somehow.
She watched his face turn and turn, until he was facing away from her yet again, when he suddenly spoke up, "For real though, where is he?"
The merry-go-round was going incredibly slowly now, and Iris didn't look up as his face came into view yet again. She didn't even know why, but somehow the words formed all by themselves, as if they just wanted to share their burden with anyone, no matter who that someone was.
"I don't know," she whispered.
Another low, drawn out creak.
"He hasn't told you?" Dudley replied incredulously.
The merry-go-round gave a groan as it finally came to a halt with him facing her.
"He's gone missing," Iris said quietly. "They haven't found him. And... at this point, I'm not sure if they will..."
"You mean... like..." Dudley trailed off at the expression on her face, for once seemingly not in the mood to mock her. She wasn't sure if she preferred this new awkward Dudley.
"Can't you just... do one of your freakish things to find him?" Dudley asked, then the world must have somehow ended since it looked like he actually honest-to-God blushed. "I... I mean..."
Iris just shot him a flat look, but didn't reply. Anything she could do, she had obviously tried already.
"I meant, like just MacGyver something together again... You know, a mobile phone, binoculars..."
Iris rolled her eyes. "Magic doesn't work like that, you know? I can't just..."
Couldn't she?
Iris blinked. Only now she had realized what he had been talking about. Of course he had stumbled upon her a few times in their childhood during her own attempts at magic, which she had only later found out to have been free ritual. He had been talking about doing some sort of ritual to try and find Harry... She wasn't sure if that would work, when not even Hedwig could find him, but that had just reminded her of something else. She didn't need to find him, she just needed to find out what happened. And Snape had even spelled it out for her. Iris slapped her face.
Of course! The only other way to restore memories was through the use of free ritual. Even though they had been completely destroyed and overwritten, since at that time someone else had been in control of her, but that wouldn't matter too much. As long as she could properly symbolize it, and provide an adequate sacrifice.
There had to be a way. There was always a way.
With a renewed spark in her eyes, Iris hopped off the swing, and turned to look back at Dudley.
"Never thought I'd say this, but... thanks."
"Uh... sure?"
Merlin, forget about Harry. Who was this and where was the real Dudley?
This blushing awkward mess somehow reminded her of a mix of Malfoy and Neville, and God if that wasn't an image she'd pay to get back out of her mind.
~V~
Iris all but slammed open the door to her room and bolted for her trunk. She had been thinking about it, and had come to a decision. If anything, she'd attempt to do this ritual properly. And that meant one focus, one action, and one location. It had been an entire year since she had done her last ritual, and it was still stuck in her mind. She had no idea if the thing that had appeared in Salem's place had been caused by her use of multiple foci—it never had before, after all—or just by the fact that bringing a soul back from the dead was impossible, or even if the thing had interfered in an otherwise working ritual for some reason. But she'd better be safe than sorry. This was too important.
Yeah. And that was another point. Since it was so important to her, she was sure there needed to be a sacrifice. She hadn't worked out what that would be, but she figured she'd get there when she got there. Flipping open the trunk revealed the silvery bowl that had ended up in her room after Myrtle had been using it in her room, which she now remembered to be a Pensieve. A device that would allow you to review memories. She still wasn't sure exactly how Lockhart's memories had ended up in it, but that didn't matter right now. This was the perfect focus if there ever was one. Now she just needed a location to direct it towards her lost memories.
Except, nothing came to mind. Something about restoring... Like a hospital? No, that didn't quite fit. Maybe one of those companies that renovated old buildings? Something about archeology?
After some amount of aimless pondering, Iris instead decided to make use of the wisdom granted to her by Luna. When she was stuck with a problem that couldn't be solved, where she didn't even know where to start looking, she could instead just bypass that problem entirely and foist it onto someone who knew the answer to everything in a heartbeat. Especially if the answer lay in the muggle world. In other words, she'd Google it.
Iris grabbed the laptop once more, flipped it open, clicked the Firefox icon and began to type.
How to restore memories that have been lost?
The results quickly came in, and were—to nobody's surprise—completely unhelpful. Reading old letters, singing a song, writing things down... That would help with actions, but not with locations.
Well, her memories hadn't really been lost, had they? More like, they had been overwritten, completely wiped out and replaced by other memories, like she never really had them in the first place, as someone else had been in control of her real body. At least, that's what she hoped had happened. If she never even had the memories in the first place, this would be a lot harder. That wouldn't be her trying to restore memories, but more like some form of divination, she guessed. But in the end, was there even a difference between a memory that had been entirely wiped out and one she never had in the first place?
How to restore memories that have been wiped out?
That, of course, had provided even less results. Muggles couldn't specifically wipe out memories, after all. The only somewhat useful results related to specific drugs that sounded uncomfortably close to Memory Charms, but sadly, didn't provide any ideas on how to actually restore the memories.
Maybe she was going about it the wrong way?
How to restore something that has been wiped out?
This provided entirely different results.
1. Check your Recycle Bin.
Yeah, that wasn't very useful. Even if she could realize something like this with Occlumency, which she had no idea if it was even possible, at the time she hadn't even known what Occlumency was, so the memories had never been moved to any sort of recycle bin in the first place.
2. Use Data Recovery Software
Software that would attempt to reconstruct any remains of data still found on the disk... That was pretty much what she had attempted with Greengrass, she guessed. Not really helpful as a symbol, either.
3. Hire a Data Recovery Service
Typing that into the search box caused her eyebrows to slowly raise. Apparently there were entire companies dedicated to taking people's physical computers, and restoring files that had been deleted on them. Who knew? But also... That sounded exactly like the kind of location she needed. An entire building, an entire company dedicated to restoring things that had been lost, things that had been wiped out.
A quick search confirmed that there were even a few of those who had their office right in the middle of London. Perfect. She picked out the one with the best rating, plotted the route, packed up her things, and then realized she'd have to wait until nightfall so that the building would hopefully be empty.
Bugger.
~V~
The weather had turned—as was the rule on the British Isles—and once the sun had set, dark and heavy rain began pouring down on the dimly-lit streets of London. Along one of them, in one of the less-traveled outskirts of the metropolis, sat a nondescript brick office building with a plain black and white sign plastered across the entrance. Crown Data Solutions was an up-and-coming business that had been established a few years back, and had seen a quick and steep rise in customers thanks to the exploding popularity of personal computers, both in the commercial as well as in the consumer sector. Originally, they had started in one of the smaller storefronts on the ground floor, however they had quickly expanded to the rest of the building, and had been struggling to build out their infrastructure and hire new engineers to keep up with the demand. Due to this, while the front entrance and the windows had been alarm-secured, the rest of the building had no such luxury. Of course, none of this made much of a difference when someone could slip right through the walls and into the building without touching so much as a door handle.
Inside, shielded from the British weather, stood rows upon rows of desks surrounded with electronic devices, glass walls and air-ducts providing clean filtered air not even containing so much as a single speck of dust, all of which the employees of this place used to perform their magic. The desks were filled with disassembled hard drives, bare metallic disks, and replacement parts, from countless data storage devices in various stages of repair. Along the walls sat large electronic servers, covered in blinking red and green lights, containing valuable customer data no doubt. At the end of the room stood a large iron door with a window—more of an air-hatch, really—barring anyone from entry save for those who were authorized and wearing full clean-room regalia.
And right next to it, in the corner, a long shadow slowly grew and grew, until it took the shape of a girl, who was neither.
Iris raised a hand and called her trusty orb of light, as her eyes began to adjust to the darkness. The actual room appeared a lot darker now than it had in the realm where light and shadow were inverted. Taking a moment to marvel at all the technology in the room, her eyes quickly zeroed in on the large desk in the center, which was half-covered in the gutted parts of what looked like a laptop, and held just enough space for her to place down her Pensieve.
Iris stood and stared at the shimmering bowl of clear liquid for a while. After some amount of fiddling, she had removed Lockhart's memory from it and stored it in one of her potions vials before coming here. She had also spent the evening trying to work out how to actually use a Pensieve other than to watch memories, more specifically, how to place your own memories inside it. She had seen Lupin do something like this with his holographic version inside the History classroom, whenever they would watch one of his own memories from the war. In the end, it had been a lot easier than expected, but still a pretty strange experience. The gentle hum of the air filtration system, as well as the server machines along the wall was the only noise audible in the room. The only thing left on her mind was the final missing ingredient. The sacrifice.
Iris had pondered this for a while, but now that she was standing in front of it, the choice seemed clear. She wanted a memory, so she had to sacrifice a memory. And since the memory she desired was very important to her, so would the sacrifice have to be.
But which one to pick? Iris let her thoughts wander for a moment. It would have to be something that was important to her, but also something that wouldn't cause bigger issues if she lost it... The first thing that came to mind was the moment she had cast her first successful Levitation Charm. But she quickly dismissed that. Would she forget how to use multiple colors if she sacrificed that? No way.
So what then? Maybe something... Yeah. She wanted to know what happened to Harry, so the memories would obviously be related to Harry. But... could she... could she really sacrifice her memories of him? Especially her most important ones?
Yes. If it would help her get him back, yes, she could. She'd sacrifice it all for him in a heartbeat. No matter the cost.
Her mind went back to their last summer, their last shared birthday, and specifically, to their time spent in each other's arms watching Harry's favorite new movie. She slowly moved her wand up towards her temple, closed her eyes, produced Indigo on the tip, and pulled.
For a moment, she was wrenched back in time and found herself sitting in the first row of the AV room of St. Grogory's. Next to her, wrapped in a half-hug, sat Harry. His eyes were glued to the projector screen with an expression of unbridled excitement, and he was occasionally reaching into the bag containing Ron's presents to hand her a new cauldron cake. In fact, he probably would have outright fed her if she hadn't insisted on tearing it from his grasp. As she watched, she felt more than saw the memory crumble, as the entire scene was layered with an inevitable sense of loss, and she knew that this was the last time she would be seeing that particular memory, or remembering it at all.
Finally, just as the entire room had faded to white—all except for the two of them—his head slumped against her shoulder, and she reached out to ruffle his hair, causing him to slowly evaporate into a white dust.
Her eyes came back open, and instead of the joy she had felt moments ago, only sadness and emptiness remained, an undefinable feeling of loss. Some lights were flickering around her, drawing the dark silhouette of her arm against the backdrop of electronic lights. On the tip of her wand hung a strand of silvery white, the entire weight of the memory she had just sacrificed dangling in front of her. Iris moved her wand down towards the bowl, and let go of her light, causing the milky strand to drop into the bowl, swirl and change. It began to cover the entirety of the surface, turning it milky, then dark, and suddenly, into a window into the familiar halls of Hogwarts castle.
"Please... please be okay, Harry," Iris whispered, and then with one final breath, reached out and touched the surface.
The liquid inside swirled into a maelstrom of memories and greedily sucked her into its depths. Marble, mortar and stone spun into sight, paintings, torches and doors whirling around her, as the memory slowly took shape. Finally, the door swung open for her and revealed a very familiar bathroom.
"Why hello there! What brings a girl like you to a place like this?"
Iris froze as she saw herself, currently being approached by a very translucent and very familiar Ravenclaw girl. What... what was this? This was... the first time she had met Myrtle! This wasn't the memory she had been looking for; she remembered this! Had she done something wrong? Or—
"Uhm... this is a girls bathroom?" her memory-self replied, causing the ghost to giggle.
"Yes, it is. Oh! Are you here to use it then?" She floated a bit closer to her and her grin widened even further. "Am I... intruding?"
Iris groaned and averted her eyes from that embarrassing memory, but she froze as her eyes found something that definitely hadn't been there the first time around. In the corner of the room, there was a large charred and blackened spot, crumbling fragments of coal burnt to ashes surrounding a single pristine leather-bound book. A very familiar book. A diary.
A diary which she recognized from the memory they had watched of the young Vo—Iris felt a sharp gust of pinpricks down her neck and quickly adjusted her ongoing thoughts—Dark Lord. Merlin, that had been too close.
What was it doing here? Had it... had that been when...
"Maybe it was a creature? Or even a ritual? Oooh, this is so exciting! I have to know more! Please please PLEASE take me with you! It's sooo boring in here!"
Iris tuned into the ongoing conversation just at the right time, as she noticed herself contemplate the begging girl, and then, suddenly do something she very much didn't remember doing.
Her memory-self sighed, turned, took a few steps into the corner and stared at the book, before she gave Myrtle another exasperated look and replied "...Fine."
And with an expression as if she was basically humbling the girl, and would rather be doing anything else, she picked up the diary, and dropped it into her book bag.
Iris thoughts were swirling, just as the memory started to do the same and she found herself catapulted onto the pristine floor of the Data Recovery Center. The lights were still flickering—even though they had been off when she had first entered. After a second, everything seemed to calm back down, and she took a breath.
She remembered. What she had just seen, while she had seen it it hadn't fit, but now, she remembered. Both the original version, and now this unaltered version. God, this was confusing.
Was that really all there had been to it? Myrtle had gotten her to agree to take the girl with her, and since she was the diary, Iris had done just that, even without really realizing it. What kind of magic was this?
Her eyes went wide as she had another thought. What else had she done without realizing? What else had Myrtle gotten her to agree to do?
Almost on autopilot, she raised her wand back to her temple, and then hesitated. Should she really give up another memory for this? And if so, which one? She didn't even remember the first one she had given up really, only the void it had left behind inside her. But still. She had to know. So there wasn't really a choice here. Iris rolled back through all of her treasured memories, picked one, produced a blue glow, and pulled.
"So... who's insane idea was it to go and steal school brooms?" came Harry's voice, who was floating across from her on said broom.
Iris blushed almost as much as her counterpart as the eyes of all the people present instantly turned onto her.
Finally, he gave her once again that same exasperated grin she had seen yesterday morning in the newspaper. "Sometimes, I really can't complain about your antics."
The brooms zoomed off into the snowy landscape, as everything was slowly covered in white. A sharp buzz and a beeping noise wrenched her mind back to the present and her eyes came back open to rapidly flickering lights, one of them bursting in a spark, and a continued angry beep from one of the servers at the end of the room.
This was kind of odd. Her magic usually hadn't interfered with technology like that. The only time it had done so was when she had been wielding polarized magic, or literally been in the shadow realm. And now, she guessed, also free magic from the ritual. Maybe it was only her color magic that seemed to work with technology?
Whatever the case, since the lights didn't seem to be calming down until she was finished, she quickly lowered the silvery strand into the bowl, and dove into its depths once more.
"So yeah, long story short, it's very likely that the monster is a basilisk."
Iris found herself in a corridor, following herself and Myrtle as they made their way down the hall from Lockhart's office.
"But even if we now know how the attacks were done, we aren't any closer to finding the heir. And on top of that, You-Know-Who has returned, and meanwhile I can barely beat Susan with all the spells I can't cast, much less protect Harry from a Dark Lord..."
"Oh... that sounds horrible..." the ghost said, laying on the empathy extra thick. "You wanna talk about it?"
Her past self completely missed it, and just replied, "It just means I have to work even harder."
"Very true. There's very few ways to grow stronger that don't involve years of learning, hard work, and diligent practice."
Iris wanted to bash her head against the wall. She had known about this. She had warned Tracey about this. And here Myrtle had been constantly prodding her to share her emotions with her, which she luckily hadn't, despite her friends' best efforts. Her surroundings shifted once more, and she found herself standing in front of a very familiar and very dreaded door. It was the room. Myrtle's room. She still had no idea what exactly it was, except that it wasn't quite real, apparently. The door opened, and what followed next was extremely disorienting.
She saw somehow both the room, as well as the corridor she had just left, all at the same time. Much like when she tried to look inside her mindscape, or when Greengrass had entered her mind. Except this room was obviously not completely imaginary. Or at least she didn't think it was? Inside the room, she was just walking up to Myrtle, who began utilizing a blackboard to teach her about wordless and wandless spellcasting, while outside it, she began walking down the corridor. Except, it wasn't quite her. She both did and didn't remember doing it, and that made her head spin just thinking about it.
"Huh, that sounds awful... Are you worried because of that? About your brother, I mean."
She wanted to forget, to drown her ears in anything else, as she watched herself unwittingly foil Myrtle's attempts at peering into her soul, while at the same time inviting her into her mind instead. Meanwhile, she watched her body make its way down towards a sink marked with a snake engraving inside that very same bathroom she had originally found Myrtle in, which curiously was the girls' bathroom, even though she distinctly remembered finding the strange engraved sink in the boys'...
A hissing sound that eerily reminded her of that one defense lesson where Harry had apparently spoken to the snake echoed from her own lips, and the sink opened up into a long and dark tunnel. Could she even trust any of her memories at this point?
Iris watched herself experiment with wordless casting, and quickly getting the hang of it. Meanwhile with her other eye she saw a dark stone tunnel, leading towards a large iron door, which was opened with another hiss, and inside... Yes. This was the Chamber of Secrets. The place she had woken up in, before Lockhart had obliviated her.
Her body raised a hand in a very familiar way. It knew the motions, knew how to wield the light. It was just someone else who was in control now. A ball of light, iridescent at first, then shifting through all the colors, taking different shapes as she walked, down and down towards the large statue, drawing some of it into her pendant, and then back out again.
Finally with a smirk, and another hiss, the mouth of the statue opened, and the head of a giant snake emerged. Yellow eyes opened and she wondered for a moment why she wasn't dead. She kept staring at the eyes for some time. They weren't really yellow, but rather a perfect mix of Red and Green. Then, she noticed herself, standing there with her eyes closed, yet completely undeterred, hissing incomprehensible noise towards the snake, who held still. Her hand came up, held out in front of its eye, and slowly, a glowing ball of yellow light began to gather. Brighter and brighter, until at last, she drew it into her pendant, and turned it reflective.
"Now, hang on! We're only getting started! You just figured something out that damn well took me weeks in mere minutes! My hurt pride aside, I really think we should try something a bit more fun~"
Iris squeezed her eyes shut for a moment as her counterpart turned right around from the door she had just been about to open at the promise of more arcane magic. If she had just left at this point... would she have found herself here in this place? In front of the basilisk, no less? But at least, it would have prevented Harry from getting hurt, she guessed. As well as everyone else.
Iris watched herself make her way back up into more and then again less familiar parts of the castle, until through a large iron door, she suddenly entered the detention wing.
Finally, she ended up in a familiar room with a large moonlit shaft, the very same one she had been using to practice. Iris watched her counterpart raise an eyebrow at the prism for a moment, then whirl around as the snarling form of her prey approached. The whole reason she had gone here in the first place. The pendant lit up, and she reached a hand to draw the captured light back outside, held it out in front of her, and in a flash, the werewolf was petrified. The threat of being exposed by his senses was no longer. And meanwhile, her mind was none the wiser.
"Depulso!"
"What the hell, Iris?! How'd you do that?"
Iris closed her eyes as the room began to swirl once more, and the memories settled into her mind. She didn't just remember what she had done. She remembered everything. The how's and why's. All of Myrtle's thoughts while she had been in control of her. And the great lengths she had gone to, to remove that knowledge from her mind. In the end, what she had done had been too similar to the Imperius not to leave a trace.
Was she going to have to go through all of these memories until she got to the one that she needed? Or... was it just that her sacrifice hadn't been powerful enough?
What she needed to know... that memory was more important than anything. And so, in turn, she would have to sacrifice a memory that was more important than anything.
But...
Iris stared at the whirling and beeping spectacle of failing servers and flickering light fixtures, as it slowly returned to something resembling calmness.
She had been trying to know what else Myrtle had gotten her to do; she had messed up her intent. What she really needed to know was what happened during those times she had been in the room, when there had been attacks, and specifically, what had happened during the final time.
Steeling her resolve, she raised her wand once more, reached, caught and pulled.
"How'd you do that?"
She settled down next to herself and Harry at the campfire that her counterpart had just started right on the snowy edge of the Black Lake. "Silent casting. Myrtle showed me."
Iris had almost forgotten the contents of their conversation of that day, so the next words came as a punch to the gut. "You're spending a lot of time with that ghost lately."
He had known. Of course he had known. Harry's gut feelings were never wrong. Meanwhile, her other self was just staring off into nothingness, trapped in her own thoughts. She watched herself stiffen as he wrapped his arms around her, just wordlessly holding her.
"It's alright, Iris. You know I'll always have your back. I'll protect you. I promise."
Iris tried to blink back tears. He'd always have her back? Yeah. She wished.
Snow settled down onto them, slowly eroding even this happiest of memories away until there was nothing but blank white that remained.
Iris stared at the silver swaying in front of her eyes. A tear was rolling down her cheek, and she didn't even remember why. Several light fixtures burst, almost plunging the room into darkness, save for the wildly blinking LEDs on the servers, most of which had turned red by now. There was smoke rising from one of the machines in the back. Finally, the Indigo winked out, and the memory settled into the Pensieve. Iris reached out a hand, and plunged.
"Iris! Come on, I found something! You gotta see this!"
She watched herself get up, dragged out of bed in the deep of the night by a visibly panicking Myrtle, who was doing her best to hide it. Of course, it had been that night where the Aurors had searched the castle again. Her counterpart finally got up, grabbed the diary from the nightstand, and after a quick argument with the ghost, once Myrtle had decided to 'vanish', she peeled open the shadows, and made her way to the second floor.
"Myrtle? Could you stay here and... keep watch? If this really has to do with the Chamber, maybe the heir will show up again?"
"Huh? What about- I mean sure, I guess, it's not like I've got much else to do, but-"
"Thanks! See you!"
And she was playing right into her hands, this time, it had even been her suggestion. Her younger self pulled out the diary, placed it down on the sink, and turned to flee the room, running back to her dorm sans the contraband. The Aurors had combed the entire castle that night, but apparently, they hadn't taken into account that someone could slip their search by moving the artifact through the shadow realm.
The memory blurredagain, and she found herself once more inside the room, practicing her wandless Depulso spell.
"Oww! What was that for?"
"For being an idiot! You were lost in your thoughts, instead of paying attention, was it? Someone must have come in and removed the snake, or done... something, I don't know! You really didn't see anything at all?"
While her counterpart was berating Myrtle inside the room, outside of it, she was moving down out into the grounds, this time utilizing the shadow realm, until she emerged right next to Hagrid's hut. A smooth motion produced the pendant once more and withdrew the captured basilisk gaze, and in a flash, all five roosters fell to the ground, petrified.
The scene changed yet again.
"Uuhhh! Well done!" Myrtle gushed, as her younger self had just successfully managed to bend an incoming spell around her.
Meanwhile, outside the room, she saw herself, in the library, and this time she was talking. Her eyes widened.
"Very well, Harry," she purred, stretching out his name in a way that sent shivers down her spine. "I dare you to..."
"...go and kiss Tracey."
Iris eyes bulged. That's what Tracey had been talking about? That... that utter bitch! She'd gone and tried to get them to kiss? Why? And why her? Also... uhm... well, this was Harry she was talking about! She was the only one allowed to do that! But also... what the hell was her mind thinking?
"Come to think of it, what else could you do with your Light powers? Maybe there's another way to use bending light in combat?"
Meanwhile, inside the room, Iris watched herself try to manipulate Myrtle into spilling even more secrets by attempting to leave, unwittingly playing right into the girl's hands by actually staying once she had delivered.
If only she had just left here, she'd have instantly realized something had been wrong. But instead, she got to watch her other self move down the aisles outside the room, using a Point-Me spell to find Ginny, until she finally cornered the girl at the end of an aisle all by herself, and quickly struck her down with yet another petrification beam.
At this point, she was sure she didn't want to see all the other times she had been in the room, even if they wouldn't cost her any more memories, as they would only cause her to feel even worse about herself. Of course, the ritual had other ideas.
Instead, the memories kept rapidly changing, showing her in the room, coming back again and again for more knowledge, for that rush of power, of mastering her magic. Meanwhile, she also saw other things. Greengrass attempting to invade her mind, and Myrtle meeting her attack with one of her own. She saw herself, sneaking into a room on the seventh floor, casting some sort of spell that sent shivers down her spine just watching and making off with the Pensieve. And finally, her other self striking down her friends, Neville, Hermione, Lily... Tracey... one after the other, and wrapping it up by drawing her own blood from her still-injured hand to write the message that would seal her fate.
Potter's skeleton will remain in the chamber forevermore.
Iris wasn't breathing, in fact, she probably was screaming, crying. A cry of anger. Anger at Myrtle, anger at V̶̮̗́͑͂̓ò̷̡̭̈́͒͘l̴̞̼̠̹͉͂͌͋͘͝d̵̢͈͎̤̠̏͛̀̎͘ë̸̝́̓̊͒m̴͈̝͉̥͐̔̾̂o̷̳̟͋̈́̎͘r̸̘̽t̵̗̆͑̍, anger at herself.
Not even the scraping of something coming alive in the back of her mind could bring her out of her stupor. Only once the noises got too loud and the name began to echo once more did she wrench her thoughts free and fired up her Mindlight to push it back.
"Myrtle! Where are you?"
Iris shook her head, unwilling to watch, yet unable to look away.
"You said that most paths to power require rigorous training and practice... So there are those that don't?"
The ghost shifted and put on an uncertain expression. "I... I'm not sure, Iris. This is not something to be taken lightly. There are very real dangers associated with something like this. Even just knowing about it."
"Does it look like I care?!" her other self hissed, dismissing the warning.
"Great knowledge always comes at a great price. Once you learn something like this, there will be no going back."
And yet she watched as she once again not only didn't care, but also agreed, and demanded Myrtle to tell her.
"And this will show me some way to get more powerful, to grow stronger without training?"
"Indeed. It's the memory of someone who has done the same, showing how they did it."
She had told her. She had told her exactly what would happen, and she had ignored it.
Iris scrunched her eyes shut as she watched herself take that final step into the Pensieve, reach for that final piece of knowledge that caused the house of cards to collapse.
She deserved it. She deserved everything that had happened. But Harry didn't.
Iris collapsed on the ground in front of the Pensieve as a shower of sparks erupted from the remaining light fixtures, as well as many of the servers. Only a few were still angrily blinking red right now. The half-disassembled laptop on the table next to her arced and began emitting smoke.
"Why?" Iris whispered.
The empty room did not reply.
But she knew why. Her still flaring Mindlight allowed her to see it with almost painful clarity.
Iris had fallen victim to the same fallacy that had caused Malfoy's ritual accident in the first place. Ritualcraft had always come naturally to her. She had never really thought much about what to do, the right way to do it, or what the consequences could be. It had just made sense. And it had always worked for her. It had obviously been so very easy that anyone should be able to do it. She had never even considered that it might go wrong, and especially in such a way as it had.
Iris had sworn to herself to never make that same mistake ever again. To find the problem and fix it. But in the end, she had drawn the wrong conclusion. Not that things could go wrong period. That it had gone wrong, because she hadn't been involved. That she obviously wouldn't have made the same mistake. That others simply weren't as talented when it came to rituals.
But over the last year, after she had figured out how to combine multiple colors, that sentiment had slowly began to spread—like an infection—to other areas of her life as well. And every spell she had almost effortlessly mastered had only reinforced that assumption. Every adversary she had managed to overcome despite the odds only proving her right in her mind. Obviously, things would somehow work out for her, after all, they always had. So long as she made sure that she was the one making the decisions—and didn't allow others to make the very mistakes that she obviously wouldn't—she could prevent things from going wrong like that ever again. She just had to make sure that it would work out for everyone else as well.
And it had been this very mindset that had stopped her from even considering that it could be herself she had been investigating. Because obviously, she would have never made a mistake like that.
After the end of last year, what she had taken away from the Quirrell incident was that she couldn't blindly trust others like that. So she hadn't trusted Myrtle. Instead, Iris had been manipulating her into revealing more and more knowledge, never once even considering that she was actually herself being manipulated.
And much like with Malfoy, she had learned her lesson the hard way. Fat load of good that did her now.
As more and more dangers had begun piling up, and all her friends had been torn away, she just had doubled down on that mindset. Instead of sitting down, engaging her mind and coming up with an actual plan to move forward as she had with the moonstone powder, she had blindly charged towards the one solution that had offered itself, trusting her raw talent and luck to guide her through the impossible hurdles along the way to her inevitable success.
She had been acting entirely reactionary. And now, she was stuck playing catch up, hoping it was not too late.
Iris cut out her Mindlight, unable to watch her thoughts spiral any further down that rabbit hole.
There was only one memory remaining. And she knew. She knew which one she had to give up. Even though she had really really really hoped to keep that one. The one she had used to cast light polarized magic. But now that she was this close, she knew she had to do it.
Iris was afraid. Afraid of the truth of what she would find. Or rather, afraid of what she wouldn't. But she still held that one foolish spark of hope. Something hadn't lined up. Even though all the evidence, all the possible theories would suggest that one way or another, Harry was dead.
And yet. She had to know. Even if only to get closure. But also, on the off chance that there still was something she could do. Some way she could still fix this. This was her fault. All of it, from the start.
Like the hammer poised to strike the final death knell, she raised her wand higher and higher, and began to draw the Indigo of the Mind aspect for the final time. And then, with one last breath, one final plea, she pulled.
The dark room turned even darker until every single light went out. All except for one... two... hundreds... no, countless of tiny pretty pinpricks of power.
"What is it?"
"It's... kinda pretty!"
Even though she hadn't realized it at the time, by now she had long since understood that for some reason, to her, magic looked... pretty. There really was no way to describe it as it didn't really have a color. Or rather just one visible color. It had many, many colors. All of them faintly layered into each other, but also all of them drowned out by the actual color of the actual object beneath. And so, to the untrained eye, that left her with only the impression of... pretty.
And pretty it was. The stars held power, as Professor Sinistra had explained. And it was that power that made them so pretty. Just like the many many hidden enchantments all over Hogwarts, where the only thing that would distinguish one piece of wall from the other was that one was slightly more... pretty. Except the stars were in a league of their own. They were distant, so far that she couldn't possibly comprehend, so far she could barely see them even with the help of a telescope. And yet, they were some of the prettiest things she had ever seen.
And so she had just sat there, leaning against Harry, as they explored the wonders of the night sky for the first time.
"Uh... Okay, promise not to be mad..."
And then, they had one of their deepest heart-to-heart's.
"What did you do this time?" came the exasperated voice of her brother.
"Hey! Don't make it sound like that!"
Iris reached out almost without thinking. She wasn't quite sure what she intended, to ruffle his hair, to hold his shoulder, to hug him, something. She just wanted to touch him one more time.
"Uh... yeah, speaking of our Defense professor, I kinda got detention with him for the rest of the year..." her other self said sullenly.
"Serves you right! What were you thinking! You know you're not supposed to let anyone know about the shadow thing."
And just before she said it, Iris remembered, and froze. "And more importantly, you promised to be careful!"
She had promised.
"Sorry," she whispered, just at the same time as her other self, until her memory version added "I'll try to be better."
Had she? Had she really tried?
"I'll be more careful, too."
Well. It looked like they had both broken their promise in the end.
"...Luv' you, Harry..." came a faint mumble from her counterpart, as she snuggled into his embrace, while Iris wished above everything else to be able to do the same one more time.
"Love you too, Iris."
And there it was. Iris wasn't sure which part hurt more now that she was hearing the words once again. The knowledge he might never say them to her again, or the fact that she wouldn't even remember it after this.
This time, instead of white, the darkness of the sky took over, drowning out the light, crumbling away the stars themselves, until it swallowed up the astronomy tower, the students, the telescope, and finally, Harry.
A single heartbeat pierced the darkness, and then, a shimmering strand of silver faded into being in front of her.
The silence was shattered by a sharp burst of sparks that was more of an explosion, as one server after the other collapsed under the onslaught of wild ritualistic magics, and several of them caught fire. The orange electric fire blazed brightly at the end of the room, and Iris could feel the heat on her skin, the smell of burnt metal in the air, but she wasn't about to stop here. She still had to know.
Pouring all her hopes into this one final prayer, she brought the wand down like a gavel, pronouncing her final sentence. The Pensieve splashed, and roared angrily into a bright grey glowing vortex, growing bigger and bigger, and she wasn't sure what would happen if she didn't touch it. Of course, she'd never find out either way.
Her hand touched the surface and she felt herself violently yanked from her feet and into a maelstrom of colors and sounds.
This was it. This was the final truth. She was in the chamber. Both her, as well as her memory counterpart. A large stone room, serpentine statues lining the walls in an eerie green glow, and molten and deformed skeletons littering the ground that looked vaguely humanoid. And she wasn't alone. At the end of the chamber, a large circular door swung open and admitted two very familiar figures. Right now, her other self was just standing in a shadowy corner as they approached; they hadn't seen her yet.
"Hi, Harry!"
God, that sounded wrong. She hoped she never actually talked like that. And that look, what the hell was she—
"Iris? Wha—"
Iris goggled. She wasn't quite sure what she was seeing. Some part of her tried to comprehend, another was feeling quite fuzzy, but most of her just screamed. "What the fuck?!"
No. She had expected a lot, but this hadn't been it. What the hell, Myrtle?! Lockhart hadn't said anything about this. There was no way that the Dark Lord would want this, nor any reason he might need her to do this. Did she just do this to mess with her, or with him? Or... or... Also could she PLEASE JUST STOP Thank you!
Iris released a breath she hadn't realized she had been holding as their lips came apart with a sound she'd rather not think about.
"What the hell, Iris?!"
Yeah, exactly her words. Although, hopefully he wouldn't—
She shivered as she saw her counterpart lick her lips in an incredibly disturbing way, and finally smirk, and whisper, "Sorry, Harry. Iris isn't here."
"Mister Potter, get away from her, NOW!"
Iris then watched in dismay as Harry's best shot at making it out of there met the same quick fate as all the others who came before him. Myrtle then proceeded to reveal with added grandeur who exactly she was, and how she was possessing Iris.
"Well, let's say... she was a bit too curious for her own good."
Of course, it had been her fault. As if Harry didn't have enough reasons to hate her already.
"Why?" Harry screamed in frustration. "Why do you work for him?"
The girl gave him a bittersweet smile. "Oh, it's quite simple, really. I'm sure your sister has explained it to you."
Her eyes met his for a moment, and then she just shrugged. "I simply want what he wants."
Iris swallowed at the reminder. If what had happened to her was screwed up, it was nothing compared to what had happened to Myrtle. From her story it had sounded like she really had been in love with the boy. And as a reward, he had bound her soul to his, forcing her to always be under his constant influence, to the point where she just wants what he wants and sees nothing wrong with it. Even though he had been the one to kill her.
"Expelliarmus!"
Apparently, they were done talking. She watched Harry attempt to disarm her other self, who only too easily managed to bend the curse in order to have it harmlessly pass her.
"Accio Diary!"
This caused her eyebrows to raise in realization. He could see the diary. The diary that had been in her pocket. She had been carrying it with her, but had never seen it, but apparently Harry had been able to. However, her expression quickly fell as nothing happened. Apparently, the diary was spelled against being summoned like that.
Then, her eyes widened further as she watched them exchange spells, only to both be foiled by a shield that should not have existed, which was apparently born from the friendship bracelets they had both been wearing all this time. They only helped so much, however, as once she reflected his own spell back at him, this time, his bracelet had remained inert, and Harry had ended up disarmed by his own spell.
"What the hell is the old man playing at?"
She had to wonder that herself, as she watched in disbelief as Dumbledore's pet phoenix made an appearance, singing a melodious song of equal parts sorrow and righteousness, until it dropped the Sorting Hat of all things onto Harry's lap. Was it maybe just a distraction of sorts?
Apparently, Myrtle had had similar thoughts, as her memory self stood still for a moment with her eyes closed, until she cast "Homenum Revelio!"
Her eyes lit up as she saw Harry take the opportunity and rush at her to probably try and disarm her. However, what happened next caused the blood to freeze in her veins. The shadows grew, and they grew a lot. In a way she had never managed before. Dumbledore's phoenix gave a deafening cry of anger and righteous fury at the presence of magic in direct opposition to its own. It turned and dove straight at them, but it was too far away. Within barely a second, there was an unfathomable amount of darkness, and it was all too quickly drawn into the wand, and before she knew what was happening, her other self uttered that one word. "Crucio!"
"No! Harry!" Iris watched, and she wished she could do anything but watch, but it wasn't to be. It had already happened.
"That... was remarkably... easy," said her other self in wonder. And a part of her couldn't help but agree. She had never managed to produce the shadows this quickly, and if Myrtle had all the knowledge that he had... somehow, whatever she had done... had worked even better than Myrtle had ever expected.
"Oh, this is just too perfect... You're basically writing Lockhart's story for him!"
Somehow, and Merlin only knew how, Harry had pulled a literal bloody sword out of the hat. Somehow, Iris couldn't help but agree. He could do it! She hoped. At least, he had a weapon again.
Her thoughts quickly came back to bite her as Myrtle at last summoned the actual Merlin-damned basilisk, and proceeded to provide mocking commentary at Harry's desperate attempts to fight it.
Yet somehow, against all the odds, he managed to strike a direct blow right into the basilisk's maw. As it lashed out in its death throes, he found himself flung right at Myrtle—who in a moment of panic resorted to her own knowledge rather than Iris', and attempted to cast a general shield spell with her broken magic.
This... this was it! He hadn't been eaten after all! But also... she still hadn't cast the Killing Curse, had she? But he—
Iris' breath caught in her throat as she noticed the blood on his arm, and she gasped as he reached and wrenched a basilisk fang from the wound. Basilisk Venom.
"Well, would you look at that..."
The deadliest magical venom in existence. So corrosive that you couldn't even store it in anything other than the original fang... This was what had happened, wasn't it? Was he... was he—
"Thus ends the story of the Boy-Who-Lived."
She noticed the phoenix settle next to him from the corner of her eyes, but her mind had already mostly checked out of the memories. Should she be crying right now? She felt like if there ever had been a time to cry, it would be now. But... nothing.
Nothing— Hang on! The phoenix! Basilisk venom was pretty much a death sentence, since the only known antidote was... Phoenix Tears. No... she couldn't hope. She couldn't... wouldn't... His arm was already turning blue, and black in places, it almost looked like it was already crumbling—
But then she saw it. Harry, having realized just what it was that had come to rest in front of him, had seen his final chance to save his sister. And he would take it, no matter the cost. And Myrtle had seen it too. For the lack of any other spells she could cast that would break the bracelet's shield, she turned to the only magic left. The shadows began spilling forth, a tsunami of darkness flowing from every corner, pooling together with a deep reverberating sound, and Iris knew exactly what was about to happen. Harry was as good as dead. If that curse would hit him, that would be it. Magic would see to it that he died, one way or another. Harry's hand raised up high, higher, the fang still clutched within, as he drew the Diary closer, but he wouldn't be fast enough.
The wand began to glow green as it moved in a jagged pattern, and she heard her own voice cry out "Avada Kedavra!" But it was not the only cry in that moment, as Dumbledore's phoenix had taken offense to the polarized magic once again. But this time, it was close. Too close.
With a screech, it charged forward, diving right at the darkness, and into the narrow gap right in between Harry, and her wand.
Green lightning cracked, and in that single instant, the Killing Curse was foiled in the only way that Magic would allow; by taking another life in its stead.
With the green light still burned into her eyes she watched the glowing form of the phoenix tumble to the ground and immediately burst into flames, having successfully spared Harry the fate of having his certain Death sentenced by Magic, by taking the curse upon itself. In the same breath, the fang plunged down, and impaled the small, innocent diary right through the center. A bloodcurdling scream echoed, both from her mouth, and from the diary, and Iris realized it wasn't just her memory self that was screaming.
He had done it! Somehow, he had made it and...
Through her fading vision as her other self collapsed, she could see Harry tumble to the ground, and approach her downed form. He... he was alive! She hadn't cast the Killing Curse at him after all! And yes, there was still the Basilisk venom, but he could still have been cured by the Phoenix... Tears...
Her gaze slowly turned from Harry's shivering form as he reached his uninjured hand to try and take hers into his, over to the still smoldering pile of ashes on the floor.
"Iris... wake up... you're safe now," he croaked, weakly shaking her shoulder, as her other self lay there in a stupor, still entrapped by Voldemort's name.
"Come on, I... I mean... I probably won't..."
His face had turned a sickly pale now, and the arm which had originally been pierced was starting to crumble and dissolve away, dark drops of liquid oozing out and impacting the floor, until they evaporated into an acrid green smoke.
Her eyes fell onto all of the molten skeletons strewn around the chamber, and then back onto Harry.
Was this what basilisk venom did?
"Iris... I... I'm—" he coughed, a wet gurgling noise, and more dark liquid came forth, causing the ground to sizzle and more green dark vapor to rise.
"Sorry," he finally whispered. "I wasn't able to... keep my... promise..."
Promise? What promise?
His hand squeezed hers one final time and it was almost as if she could feel his fingers on hers lingering still, until they faded for good. He collapsed onto his back, the darkening and deforming now rapidly spreading through his body as it began to dissolve inside out, his skin was blackening, and so was her vision.
"No," came a faint whisper—her own.
The vision distorted, until the Pensieve lurched and regurgitated her back onto the ground, only for her entire body to immediately be drenched by the icy cold water of the automated fire-suppression system. All that she could hear was the shrill alarm bell that was ringing throughout the whole building.
No.
Iris just sat, a torrent of icy cold water pouring down on her, unwilling to move. She hadn't wanted to believe it. She had refused to see it. Even though all the signs had pointed towards it. It had been obvious as day, and only some sort of freak miracle could have saved him, and yet... She had clung onto hope. Foolish hope.
Harry was dead.
He had been dead for over a week.
He had sacrificed himself; so that she could live. And nobody had had any idea. Aside from herself, nobody still had any idea.
Harry was dead.
And it was her fault.