In a somewhat long chapter, the Temple of Sacrifice comes to a close! I'll be posting an illustration of the False Goddesses (the temple boss) today, so check my"personal fanart" tag on the garden-eel-draws tumblr for that. It's one of my first tries at doing a lineless painting, so of course I decided to make my early attempt a weirdly complicated three-people-in-one creature lol. Content warning for a head injury, brief magical torture, and catacomb aesthetics. Magical thought-speak is indicated by [these brackets].
Shadow Harry ran his fingers across a skull woven into the wall, soaking in the lingering sense of terror that radiated from it. Being a dark spirit of Hyrule, he had deep ties to its people, living and dead. Mostly the living, but he could feel an echo from the souls that had passed on. He had been born of the people's anger and despair and gained strength from it during times of suffering.
It was for this reason that he knew something was wrong. He should have been more powerful than this after attacking the school, since he'd left its inhabitants alive to live in fear, yet his magic level remained unchanged. Though he still had the ability to easily carry out any orders he was given, his disconnection with the emotions of Hyrule's people troubled him.
This temple, too, didn't seem quite right. He recognized some of it; Vaati had definitely dragged chunks of land from the Hero of Time's era to wherever and whenever this was. Other parts of the patchwork dungeon were unrecognizable, stolen from times and places he had no recollection of. Those foreign additions to the patchwork labyrinth were probably why the ambiance of the place felt so off. There were familiar notes of pain and anger, but darker and heavier than anything he'd encountered in Hyrule. The Shadow Temple and the monument to human suffering within Kakariko Village's well had nothing on this place's atmosphere of immeasurable hatred, even if pieces of those locations had been tossed into this one. Where was this darkness coming from? Was it the same power that had turned Vaati's mood so foul? It didn't fit Hyrule, a place blessed and watched over by its loving pantheon.
"Is this Hyrule at all?" he wondered aloud. The memories he had received from the latest Hero had shown him a place very different from the one he'd seen just before going into his last bout of dormancy, but was that a difference in time or location? He could tell Hyrule was somewhere nearby—practically around him, even—yet his connection was too muted for him to truly be there. He could have just been kept asleep for so many millennia that he'd been forgotten, but that explanation didn't sit right with him. Shadow Harry wasn't a god; he didn't rely on worship for his continued existence.
He had experienced this before, hadn't he? Shadow Harry racked his memory. Depending on his master, his long list of recollections could be difficult to sift through; some dark mages didn't like their servants to think too much.
Several blank spots riddled his eons of experiences, adding up to centuries' worth of useless nothing. Whatever had given him a sense of déjà vu had been lost in that murky sea generated by the magic that limited his free will.
Shadow Harry growled in frustration and slammed his fist into the wall. Ancient enchantments kept his hand from going through it, but only because he hadn't put much force into the hit.
"Why are you doing this to me? You let me have my fun last time!" he shouted into the empty atrium. He just wanted to set towns on fire, steal people's horses, and play with the Hero's weapons once in a while. Honestly, was that too much to ask? He didn't want to sit around decorating Vaati's stolen mish-mash temples or finding ways to dance around horrendous orders. What had happened to letting him set off volcanoes and kidnap children? The shadow existed to make people's lives difficult, force the Hero to become stronger, and—most importantly—have fun! Vaati was constraining him to keep his precious organized plans going smoothly. Well, he shouldn't have called up Shadow Harry if he wanted order instead of chaos!
Stabbing pain erupted in Shadow Harry's skull. Vaati was apparently back from his trip just in time to catch Shadow Harry thinking too loudly about the wrong thing. A scream was wrenched from the shadow's throat as agony seared his very being, causing him to flicker in and out of sight. Vaati's power—the same that drove him to follow any and all commands—now attacked his every nerve.
[You exist to serve, shadow. Your idea of "fun" means nothing to me,] his master said with a sneer in his condescending young voice. Even after all this time, Vaati still sounded like the same selfish boy who had stolen a magic hat and wished for power.
Shadow Harry temporarily lost the ability to do any more than writhe as Vaati lashed out at him.
[You may have no opinions of me unless they are those I have given you!] the corrupted child roared. [Now prepare the temple's final defense! Your tricks and traps have failed to kill the Heroes, and I sense their approach.]
The scream that nearly leapt from Shadow Harry's throat this time was one of frustration, not pain. He hadn't had anything to do with the conceptualization or creation of the temple! Oh, sure, he'd sprinkled monsters here and there, but his bloody master hadn't wanted him touching the structure of his precious "masterpiece".
His core suddenly constricted, an invisible force clamping down on the center of his existence like a vise. Shadow Harry went very, very still. All thoughts halted and all emotions were quashed. If his core was crushed or torn out, it could be well over half a millennium before he was able to reform. Inexplicably distanced from Hyrule's people as he was, he didn't know whether he'd even come back at all.
[You will obey me without complaint and without comment because you were created to follow Dark Lords such as I,] Vaati said in a low, dangerous hiss. [You have served Ganon and you now serve me because that is what you are for. Is that understood, Shadow?]
"Yes, Master," Shadow Harry wheezed. "I exist to serve you."
Ron groaned upon seeing the bridge of moving platforms that made up the pathway to the boss-monster's door. Not only were there moving lines of hovering floor tiles they had to jump across, but there were spikes on either side of the bridge that would stab and slide them off the platforms if they didn't cross quickly enough. On the upside, the glasses revealed that the seeming void below the platforms was only an illusion; the pit wasn't bottomless, just deeper than the other, similar pits scattered around the temple. It was a five-meter drop into a pool of incredibly suspicious reddish liquid, which raised the possibility of being covered in death-muck, but lowered the chance of dying a slow death by eternal falling.
"Is every one of these Hylian caves designed with athletes in mind?" Malfoy whined with a stamp of his foot. "It's always 'jump across this', 'run from that'. Why couldn't an arithmancy problem suffice every now and then?"
"It's a tad difficult to build math problems into a temple," Blue pointed out. "Knife traps, pitfalls, and spikes are the more obvious construction choices, one would think."
Hermione studied the platforms and pursed her lips thoughtfully. "I've been getting the sense that these places were originally meant more as tests for the Hero than as the deathtraps Vaati intends them as. They have a sustaining magic that's highly counterproductive toward the act of finishing off would-be heroes."
Blaise's dark eyes went wide. "Sustaining magic?" he squeaked. "But to cover areas of this size would take ridiculous amounts of—"
In unison, Blue and Hermione waved their arms toward the room around them. "Murder? No, you don't say," Blue said dryly.
"It could be that this temple is built from the bodies of those whose lives were sacrificed to power the sustaining enchantments over all the other temples of this religion," Hermione hypothesized. "Unfortunately, there's no way to be sure."
Ron's gut twisted. His meeting with that ghost in the room with a floor of bones now made more, saddening sense. "This place of the wronged dead", the ghost had called it. Oh, Merlin.
"I'm pretty sure," he said quietly to Hermione. Hyrule must have been a bloody messed-up place if they'd thought this kind of thing was okay. He was kind of glad it was gone now. "Let's get out of here," he declared to the group at large. "This place wants us gone as much as we want out." He started toward the bridge of shifting platforms, ignoring Bulstrode's question of, "How do you know?"
Ron crossed the floating stone tiles with quick, sure jumps. At one meter across and a meter apart, they were perfectly spaced to give a kid his age a challenge, not an impossible task. His determination didn't waver despite the unsettling pool below him. He wanted to get out of here as soon as possible—not because it frightened him to be around thousands upon thousands of human skeletons fashioned into architecture, but because he didn't deserve to be here. Weasleys took their funeral rites very seriously, as all magical Britons did, and he knew he was desecrating this mass grave just by walking through it.
It took five minutes and a couple of hasty levitation spells from Hermione and the twins to catch those who fell, but all of the young adventurers (and Dog) managed to cross. As Harry walked up to the door to unlock it, Ron pulled the shield over his shoulder and slid it onto his left arm. While he wasn't sure whether it would even hold up after a millennium or two of sitting in a treasure chest, any protection it could offer would be appreciated.
Fred and George watched the lock on the huge stone door spin and then fall apart with wary interest. "Does anyone have any idea what might be in there?" Fred asked.
"We never got this far the first time," George admitted.
"Probably a giant ghost or a skeleton," Ron told them as he followed Harry through the door. "The first one was a Keese dragon at the end of a dark cave."
George blew out a breath. Fred tweaked his enchanted glasses with a tense smile. "Well, that sounds…fun."
"It set itself on fire, too," Ron couldn't help adding with a cheeky grin. He relished the momentary looks of shock on his elder brothers' faces before he picked up his pace and walked past them. He and his friends hadn't bragged about it because they hadn't wanted someone running off to tell Dumbledore, but yeah, he'd helped slay a flaming bat-dragon and it had been pretty cool.
The room they entered reminded him of the giant Keese's atrium, though this time it was square and the walls were lined with spikes along their base. The ceiling was also higher, with a horrible chandelier made of skeletons hanging from the center like a predatory claw. A lit fire-bin sat in each corner, sending out yellowish light.
As soon as the door slammed shut behind them, a shadowy figure appeared in the center of the chamber. Harry Potter's features, formed from grayish flesh and solid smoke, regarded them from across the room.
"You!" Bulstrode shouted, aiming her wand at the boy. "You attacked the school! You blew up my friends!"
Sickly yellow eyes widened, then narrowed. "My master commanded it," Shadow Harry said in a dull monotone. "I do everything he commands, whether I—" He winced. "Well, let's just say my opinion doesn't matter." His gaze slid to Yellow, who was tucked against Ron's side. "Sorry for the mix-up, kiddo," the shadow said with a hint of an apologetic smile. "I wasn't even trying to pass as you, otherwise—" the boy's appearance shifted, his dull gray skin brightening into color and his smoky hair and robes turning solid. "—I would have made myself look like this," Yellow's exact copy finished with an unnerving smirk.
"What the hell?" Blaise muttered. "What kind of magic was that?"
"Can we make a potion for that?" Fred murmured thoughtfully. "Better than Polyjuice?"
Red's face contorted in anger and he lassoed his wand over his head. "Don't mess with my brother!" he snarled as he shot a jet of silver fire at the shadow.
Shadow Harry caught the shot in one hand. It swirled violently, a roiling ball of energy sitting in his palm. "I'm your shadow, kid. Guess what makes shadows darker?" He crushed the flames in his hand. "Brighter lights." The creature snickered and returned to his normal smoky self. "Get some sword skills or Light Arrows and then we'll talk. Until then," a snap of his fingers sent a wave of black energy pulsing from him, hitting everyone like a physical shove, "say hello to my lovely friends." He melted into the floor and vanished in a puddle of shadow.
Ron tightened his grip on his wand as three wisps of smoke rose from the ground in Shadow Harry's wake. They solidified as he watched, the faintly colored air becoming translucent human figures of pale green, silvery blue, and washed-out red. The green ghost wore a tunic-like dress and boots, the blue was clothed in sweeping robes, and the red was clad in bloused trousers and an ornately embroidered half-top. All of them had beautiful faces, with the characteristics of peoples long lost.
All of them had solid black eyes swimming with fury.
"We are the goddesses three," the blue ghost declared, her voice high and grating.
The green spirit grinned, her lips stretching halfway across her face. Rotted gray teeth glinted between them. "It was to us that these sacrifices were made," she said in a mockery of sweetness.
"Your bodies will fortify our great temple," the red phantom decreed with a grand wave of one clawed hand. "You will know the suffering wrought in our names!"
The ghosts held hands and then began to melt into one another. Bones flew from the walls to form armor around their growing form as it swelled in grotesque pulses. After a few seconds, it rose to its feet. Six hands held various weapons and three mouths wore gleeful fanged smiles.
"YOU WILL BE OURS!" the monster roared, and two red arms flung scimitars across the room.
Hermione took one of the swords out with a light spell and Ron blocked the other with his shield. The weapon had such force behind it that it knocked him off his feet.
"Spread out! There're only six arms, and fourteen of us!" Harry shouted. "Shoot at her and look for a weak point!"
"She's got armor on!" protested Crabbe or Goyle. Ron was too focused on watching the monster sweep toward the back of the room to see who had spoken.
"Find a way to get through it, then!"
Ron, in the middle of scrambling upright, saw the ghost stop at the back of the room and wheel around, the blue arms holding jewel-topped scepters rising as she did. "Dodge!" he cried out.
Bolts of energy flew from the ghost's staffs in a hail of lightning. The magical attack was too fast to evade; the only way to escape it was to get out of range.
Or, if you were Ron, curl up behind your oversized shield and hope for the best. Ron braced his equipment-bearing arm in front of him and made the rest of himself as small as he could. 'Ha! And Bulstrode thought it was too big for me to use!' he thought triumphantly as he watched the girl run by, shrieking and jumping as lightning nipped at her heels. Two energy shots hit the shield, causing it and the boy it defended to slide across the floor with a metallic screech, but the ancient piece of equipment held.
As soon as the attack was over, Ron sprang to his feet and began firing spells at the giant ghost. He whirled his wand overhead and slashed it down as quickly as he could, sending jets of white flame toward his enemy. Most bounced off of her skeleton armor, but one hit a red arm in the wrist.
The ghost shrieked as her limb went limp, the scimitar it held falling to the ground with a clatter and then vanishing. She flew at Ron and whipped one of her green arms forward. He barely had time to notice the giant brown nut headed his way before it landed at his feet and exploded with a sharp crack.
The room went white. All sense of direction went out the window. If not for the fact that he could hear perfectly fine and felt the impact of his body hitting the ground, he would have suspected he'd been Poe-possessed.
Ron planted a hand on the steady stone beneath him. Down was that way. He then pushed himself up, rubbing at his eyes with the back of his wand-hand. The blindness was fading to sparking white spots, but he couldn't see clearly quite yet.
Something gripped him by the back of his robes and dragged him across the floor. A split-second afterward, he heard a loud "shink!" and became aware of a huge scimitar now embedded in the ground and quivering. He gulped; had he not been pulled out of the way, he would have caught that sword in his gut.
A great shaggy head appeared over his shoulder and gave him a lick on the cheek.
Ron laughed, a hysterical sound. "Thanks for the save, Dog," he said, standing up. Malfoy might have been a git, but his dog was alright.
The ghost now floated in the middle of the room, a ball of tri-colored energy forming above her head. Her eyes were closed in concentration as her six arms poured power into her growing attack.
Ron looked from the intimidating sphere of magic to his shield. Even if it had been twice its current size, he didn't think it could defend him from that, and everyone else was unprotected! What were they supposed to do?
Without any particular goal in mind beyond annoying the ghost into doing anything else, he fired wildly at her with his wand. The light spells bounced off of an invisible shield that had formed around the creature. Like everyone else who had thought of shooting the ghost, he was forced to dodge his own magic as it was reflected back at him. He kept it up, though, casting with increasing desperation until—
Creak…BANG!
One errant spell—he wasn't sure it was his—had caught the chandelier above the monster. The fixture wobbled and creaked before dropping like a rock. It slammed right into the spirit's head, causing her to weave dizzily on her feet before falling over. Her planned attack flew high into the air and then crashed into her, sending the monster's limbs jittering madly and cracking her armor. Undamaged by the fall, the chandelier reeled itself back into its normal spot.
The four Harry Potters leapt on the ghost with reckless abandon. Ignoring the threat of the ghost's great size and reach, they ran in with their swords held high and got in as many slashes as they could. It was only when their target shook herself, sending out a cascade of triangular gems, that they halted their attack to scramble for jewels.
"IMPERTINENT WRETCHES! YOU DARE CHALLENGE US?" The ghost rose into the air and made a broad sweeping motion with one arm. Immediately, the room was plunged into darkness as the fire-bins were snuffed out.
In the absence of light, the spirit's previously solid form became pale and wispy. Her skin wavered with the same smoky uncertainty as a Poe's, and the long ponytail her hair was bound into flowed as if sliding through water.
Several people cursed. "I can't summon my lantern!" one of the Harrys cried.
"It must be the glasses! We can't have two of these magical artifacts on our person at the same time," he heard Hermione say.
"The ghost's invisible! You need the glasses on to see her!" one of the twins warned.
With a wicked cackle, the monster brought up her blue arms and rained magic on the disorganized Hogwarts students. Ron brought his shield up and ran backwards out of range, spellcasting as he did. His aim wasn't the greatest, but she was keeping her arms still. With enough tries, he managed to knock the non-ghostly staff out of one hand.
"ACCEPT YOUR FATE, MORTALS!" The blue arms fell and the green arms went up.
"Close your eyes!" Ron shouted. At the same time, he heard two Harrys yell, "Deku nuts!"
Ron shut his eyes and raised his shield just in time. Two explosions of light went off, filtered red through his eyelids. Once it was safe, he opened his eyes and looked around the room.
The enchanted glasses he wore were excellent at cutting through the darkness, and he saw Yellow, Goyle, and Dog running around and lighting the fire-bins. The ghost was tossing swords at Hermione and Blaise, while everyone else was either flinging light spells at her or trying to get her attention. The spells were doing absolutely nothing to the powerful spirit, passing through her like she wasn't there. Until she became solid, they weren't going to get anywhere with that tactic.
Instead of wasting his magic, Ron kept an eye on the torch-lighting situation and aimed his wand at the ghost's arms. Dog lit the last torch with a shake of his lantern, sending the room into full light. When solidity flowed into the ghost's translucent form, Ron started shooting. He knocked down two of her arms, and his classmates hit the rest.
An ear-gouging shriek of rage left the monster's throat as she began summoning a giant ball of energy. Her inky eyes promised death and fury twisted her graceful hands into claws.
The wrathful creature was so busy being angry that she didn't notice she'd gone underneath the chandelier again. A shot from Crabbe knocked the massive fixture on her head.
Bone armor cracked further under the assault of the phantom's magic, and then shattered when battered with the Harrys' swords. It fell off in pieces as the ghost got back to her feet.
"WE WILL REND YOUR SOULS FROM YOUR FLESH, AS WE WERE TORN FROM OURS!" Multicolored arms rose and froze at stiff angles, then began to push outward. The spirit's body ripped apart as her three components flew in different directions. With a glint of vengeance in her eyes, the red phantom took off after the Slytherins with her swords swinging. Giggling, the green ghost conjured a line of Deku nuts and sent them at Ron's friends. The blue spirit brought up her twin staffs and swung them down imperiously in Ron's direction.
"Oh shi—!" Ron hid behind his shield as it was hammered with multiple bolts of energy. The assault threw him off his feet and he fell to the ground with enough force to crack his head against the stone.
Harry slashed at the monster's twitching arms with single-minded focus. His sword felt more like an extension of his arm than ever, empowered by the gems he'd been collecting over the course of the battle, so every swing came with ease.
The ghost gave a final shriek as his strike landed and then began to rise into the air. She separated back into three as her skin and clothes petrified into fragile-looking stone, the color leaching from them. The trio hovered there for a moment, their faces frozen in expressions of anguish, before they dissolved into ash and vanished.
Harry stood and stared at the spot where the spirits had been, dimly noting that the light had returned and everyone was whooping in celebration. He didn't feel triumphant about what he had done. Yes, the ghosts had been trying to kill everyone, but what had killed them in the first place? They'd been trapped in this horrible temple for ages, likely bound to it by whatever had taken their lives, and then he had gone and killed them again. Had he freed them from their torment? Had he consigned them to something worse? Whatever he had done, it didn't feel right.
Hermione's voice, panicked and shrill, snapped him from his thoughts. "Ron! Ron, what happened?"
He turned to see Hermione and the twins gathered around Ron's prone figure. Blue joined them shortly after, being the nearest of Harry's brothers, and began flicking his wand over Ron with muttered incantations. "A mild concussion," he pronounced. "Just enough to knock him out. I haven't learned how to fix those yet, but I can do this. Rennervate." He pointed his wand at Ron's chest.
Harry reached his friend just as he began to stir. "Are you okay?" he asked as Ron woozily sat up. "How many fingers am I holding up?" He held two in front of Ron's face.
"Er…three?" the boy squinted. "I need'a go to th'Hospital Wing…I think."
Fred and George carefully helped their younger brother to his feet. One of them put his shield on his back while the other ducked under his shoulder to support him. "We've got this, Harry," the twin keeping Ron upright said with a wink. "You go get that scroll floating over there."
For a brief moment, Harry wondered whether collecting the scroll was a good idea, what with Ron being in his current condition. Then he went rigid as Yellow touched the magical item and set off the knowledge within.
One jarring lesson later, Harry shook off the remaining dizziness and evaluated what he'd learned. A flick of his wrist summoned his fire-lamp, causing the magical glasses on his face to disappear. Another gesture made the glasses reappear and the lantern vanish from his hand.
"Only one item at a time, huh?" Ron's voice commented. He shrugged when Harry looked at him in surprise. "Those scrolls must have some kind of healing magic in them," he said, sliding his arm off of his brother's shoulders. "That's good to know, isn't it?"
"I wonder if we could find a way to stretch that magic over everyone who got hurt yesterday," Blue mused. "That would definitely lighten Pomfrey's workload."
"You'd have to figure out the scrolls' targeting mechanism first," one of the twins said.
"If they hit everyone willy-nilly, then the whole school would get a lesson when anyone found a scroll," said the other.
"We know that only two or three have been found in Hogwarts, but it's not like everyone has suddenly picked up Wizzrobe fire spells or—" he circled his wand in a spiral motion and then flicked it to the side, causing a stiff breeze to blow in that direction, "—wind magic. Something has to limit what they do."
"Could it be proximity?" Blue inquired.
The twins shook their heads. "We got a treasure chest after we saved some second-years from a gang of Moblins," one reported. "Those students were still close by when we got the scroll, and they didn't learn anything."
Hermione nodded in understanding. "Active participation," she declared. "If you do something that declares you an 'adventurer', someone in search of treasure or acting in defense of others, you receive a reward. If you're a passive observer, you don't benefit."
"Kind of a woolly way to decide, isn't it?" Blue said. "What if you're rubbish at adventuring, but tag along anyway? Do you get a reward if your team keeps having to save you?"
"Would you quit your nattering and come on, already?" Malfoy called to them in annoyance. He stood in front of the open exit with his hands on his hips. "We need to break the eyes and get out of this place! Who knows how many hours we've been in here? We could have half of Hogwarts's staff hunting for us by now!"
"Untwist your knickers, Malfoy! We're coming along," a twin called back.
The atrium's exit led to a smaller room that featured a square red jewel floating above the ground and a quartet of electrified eyes standing in a rectangular formation. While Malfoy impatiently snatched the gem out of the air, the Harrys arranged themselves around the eyes.
"On three," Harry said. "One, two, three!" Four swords came down and four crimson eyes snapped shut.
When the eyes shattered, Harry felt something change in the air. A weight he hadn't been aware of had lifted from his back. Looking around, he saw pensive and surprised expressions on his classmates' faces that told him they had noticed the shift as well.
"What do you think happened this time?" asked Yellow. "Has the barrier gotten bigger?"
Harry started toward the wide staircase at the back of the room. "We'll see when we get back to Hogwarts."
Harry sighed as he listened to his dorm-mates chatter about all the letters they'd just received from their worried families. Destroying Vaati's eyes had loosened the mage's curse on the castle just enough to allow house elves and owls to pass through. Hogwarts had been instantly inundated with the delayed owls of hundreds of families, all seeking to know what had happened to their precious children during the time when communications had been cut off. Almost every family had sent letters.
Almost.
"I'm being stupid," Harry quietly growled to himself. The Dursleys couldn't care less about him, and the feeling was mutual. If they'd sent a letter, he probably would have burned it. That didn't keep him from being bitter.
He supposed there was some truth to adults' complaints about "moody teenagers".
There was a crash from the window and a responding sigh from Ron. "Again, Errol?" The boy got up from his bed and went to the window, returning with a haggard owl and two thick handfuls of letters. Harry's jealousy skyrocketed, though he limited his outward reaction to a pursing of his lips.
"Mum, obviously we weren't dead. Why would you…?" Ron muttered as he sorted through the stack of mail. He separated the letters into piles with a swiftness that spoke of practice. Once he had five smaller heaps, he picked them up and rose from his bed.
Harry was astonished when Ron came over to him.
"For you, and…er, all of you, I guess," Ron said as he handed a sheaf of letters over. Harry stared blankly at them before reaching out to claim them. "I'll tell her there're four of you now, so you can each get your own mail," Ron said with an air of apology. "Mum and Dad flipped their lids, let me tell you. I'm just glad we didn't get any Howlers." The boy headed off to deliver the rest of the mail, leaving Harry to stare at his letters.
After two years of getting Christmas and birthday presents from the Weasley clan, he supposed this shouldn't have shocked him. The Weasleys clearly cared about him beyond his fame. Still, though, Harry found it hard to believe he'd gotten worried letters from the family like any other Weasley. It was strange to be…loved.
"We have mail?" he heard his own voice ask as he went to open the first envelope. Red stood at the end of his bed, his head cocked to the side in curiosity. His scarlet eyes were turned a strange plum color by the enchanted glasses he wore.
"Mrs. and Mr. Weasley got worried, I guess," Harry said as he scooted back to make room for the other boy.
Red climbed onto the bed and sat cross-legged while he scanned the address lines of the envelopes. "We must have gotten some from Charlie and Bill, too," he said. "A few of these are from Egypt and Romania. We got mail from all the way over there?"
"I know, right? Want to help me read through it?"
"Love to!" Red picked up a number of letters. "Yellow and Blue'll have to miss out, since they're sleeping. They can see these later."
And so, the boys spent their evening happily reading their letters.
The False Goddesses were an amalgamation of ghosts sacrificed to the goddesses of Hyrule whose obsessive resentment twisted them into a mockery of the deities they hated. When Harry slew them, they were freed from the temple and allowed to move on. Conveniently, their long-lost life-force still fuels the temples around Hogwarts.