In which references to His Dark Materials are rampant...
"ᴛʜᴇ ʀᴏᴀᴅ ᴛᴏ ʜᴇʟʟ ɪꜱ ᴘᴀᴠᴇᴅ ᴡɪᴛʜ ɢᴏᴏᴅ ɪɴᴛᴇɴᴛɪᴏɴꜱ" — ᴇxᴀᴄᴛ ᴏʀɪɢɪɴꜱ, ᴜɴᴋɴᴏᴡɴ
Chapter Fifteen: The Dead Boy in the Puddle
"What's that?" asked Ruby of Daphne, who had her nose stuck in a copy of the Daily Prophet.
Daphne did not answer, so she glanced down the table, and saw Pansy and Blaise whispering to each other, their voices quiet but mocking. Professor Snape was in a noticeably bad mood; apparently, something important had gone missing from the storeroom. He had already gone through half of the students' bags before Professor McGonagall and Professor Sinistra reprimanded him.
What's going on?
The only person who paid her any mind was the Head Boy, who folded his copy of the newspaper and handed it to her with a grim expression.
"Page 2."
She took it from him, wondering what could be possibly less important than Cornelius Fudge appearing in a new hat (on the front page) and yet, still the subject of interest.
It wasn't even an article; instead, a few paragraphs in a little green box.
...and please be reminded, we emphasize that Mr. Potter's privacy should be maintained during this trying time...
Ruby scanned further up the page.
...An anonymous informant told the Prophet that Hogwarts administration are not considering moving Mr. Potter to St. Mungo's for his final weeks...
And further up.
"This is news?" she managed to say, weakly. "That Harry's..."
Alastair and Gemma both gave her sympathetic looks.
"It's disgusting," said Gemma in a comforting tone. She nudged Alastair.
"Yes. Awful breach of privacy. If you need anything at all, please let us know. In the meantime, Professor Dumbledore asked us to let you know that you're excused any absences from lessons, to spend more time..."
"Thanks," said Ruby, clutching her books to her chest.
Pansy looked her way; and, hoping not to have to hear anything nasty, Ruby snatched two pieces of toast off the table and left the Great Hall before she could finish opening her mouth.
On her way out, she saw Mafalda talking to Lockhart, which was odd, because Mafalda hated Lockhart, and she didn't look the slightest bit annoyed. In fact, she was giggling over her pumpkin juice.
If it was any other day, she might have stopped. But Ruby was too busy counting.
It was one week exactly until Walpurgis Night. That meant exactly one week to prepare.
She had everything figured out. It was all planned out her head, of course, not written out, because she was paranoid and Daphne thought she was up to — experimenting with Dark magic — which wasn't too far off.
But it didn't matter. Nothing would go wrong.
Harry sighed. He followed the path the shadows would take; up from his arm, which they had already possessed, and through his veins — a black, web-like network marring his neck and chest; and when he twisted and looked in the mirror, his back, too.
The whispers were louder, too, and even more incomprehensible — as if the Obscurus was going mad.
Rip. Kill. Burn. Hurt. As if it had lost the ability to express itself in sentences, as it clawed, desperately, to get out.
Is it taking it out on me? Not being able to get out and hurt people?
When he reached out to touch anything out of habit with the shadow arm, he simply passed through it, like ghosts did. Once, he'd made the mistake of touching one of Neville's plants (which he had left to keep Harry company), it wilted slightly. From then on, he tried his best to avoid touching any people with it.
No wonder Quirrell — Voldemort — turned him into a weapon last year.
All this time, all I've really been is a pawn. Unimportant. Living on borrowed time, with only a few ways forward — hide, eat, or be eaten.
"Your move," said Ron, snapping Harry out of his reverie. He had clearly been holding back, but now he cast a curious glance at Harry's shadow arm.
"Does it hurt much?"
"No," said Harry irritably, with a twitch of his material shoulder, as if it were nothing. "Doesn't feel like anything at all."
He waved the arm slightly, the shadows billowing around it, and ordered his rook forward a few steps, so that it stood just in front of Ron's row of pawns, its knees knocking together as it shivered.
"F2 to G3," said Ron, and the pawn in question swung his mace at Harry's rook, who crumpled instantly.
Rip, kill. The arm longed to wrap its fingers around Ron's neck, to reach out with dagger-sharp claws and poke two holes into Hermione's eyes, even to gobble up and swallow Madam Pomfrey and Nicholas Flamel across the room.
You can't get out. You won't. I won't let you.
KILL! it screeched, hungry and terrifying and powerful from feeding on his fear. But not yet stronger than him.
Be quiet! he shouted at it mentally, screwing his eyes shut and pressing his fingers into his temples. Harry summoned his magic as if he were about to cast a spell; and clamped down on it, hard. He could almost felt the shadow monster squirming in his grip as he forced it down, down, down.
The door swung open, and the inhabitants of the Hospital Wing turned towards the newcomer.
"Anything wrong?" asked Ruby. The 'Time-Turner' was tucked securely out of view behind her green-and-silver tie, and her hair was chest-length now, tied out of her face with a red ribbon that Harry thought might have been borrowed from Parvati.
Slowly, he shook his head.
What are you hiding? wondered Harry. Ever since the Obscurus had shown its unwelcome face again, something felt off about her. Off more than usual, because most people found her a bit off. Sometimes he wished that she wouldn't stare people in the eyes so intently, or glare at the floor.
But this was different. Ruby was acting shifty.
Shifty, the way she had acted behind the sofa in the living room at Number Four Privet Drive, before she put the monkshood in Uncle Vernon's tea. He'd never asked her about it, but she must have planned it, though he hadn't seen her pocket the poisonous flowers while they were weeding the garden earlier in the week.
She hates Petunia more, but Petunia's too skinny to stand a chance against the two of us unless she can reach the frying pan, and Dudley would prefer it if we left. He doesn't like us, but he doesn't hate us, either.
And thinking of it, was Petunia scared of Voldemort after all? She believes in magic, and Dumbledore must have explained that the spell he cast on her would protect her home, too.
Ruby knew Vernon would be the real issue if we tried to sneak off in the middle of the night. So she went and got him out of the way.
Was this just how she was, when she was about to... hurt someone?
But whom?
"How did you sleep?" asked Ruby, sitting down on the side of the bed.
Harry scratched his neck.
"Alright."
Really, it was awful — there was a snake under the bed trying to talk my ear off last night and I didn't get a chance to sleep at all, actually, but that's not really here nor there.
Hermione, for her part, had gone back to her nearly-paralyzed state from when the basilisk had gotten Madam Pince in the library. Harry personally thought that Madam Pomfrey needed to stop writing her prescriptions for Calming Draught; otherwise, she'd need to have her stomach pumped one day or another at this rate.
It wasn't just facetiousness; he was actually worried about her.
Flamel got up and left, as usual at that time once a week, to Floo-call his wife, Perenelle.
(Hermione thought the immortal couple were quite sweet; Ron found them creepy).
Harry saw Ruby dart behind Flamel's table; she seemed to draw something out from the crucible, wave her wand, and then put it — a chalky-looking yellow stone — back where she'd found it. Her hand went surreptitiously into her pocket.
"Ooh, you've nearly got Harry's king, Ron," she said innocently as she trotted over. "As long as he doesn't move it over—"
"Shh!" Harry cut in. "Don't tell me."
Only, he did not see the opening, and Ron's queen soon enough beheaded his king.
"Where was it?"
"Here. You could have castled."
Just then, an unfamiliar voice interrupted: "He is here, little one... He is coming..."
"Here?" asked Harry, turning quickly in the direction of the voice.
Hermione, frozen with terror, sat rigid in her chair, as a large black adder coiled herself around the girl.
"Oi! Leave her alone!" shouted Ron, brandishing his wand at the adder, who did not so much as blink.
"Get off of her!" ordered Harry. "Can't you see she's scared of you?"
The adder blinked, and slithered down Hermione's shoulder, her torso, and her leg, until she reached the floor.
Hermione seemed to come slightly back to life; she stood up and went to Ron, hiding her face in his shoulder as not to look at the snake.
"You humans have no sense of humour," the adder groused.
"It's only funny when people are laughing. That's just cruel. And who are you talking about?"
"Him," the adder hummed, "...him... He who came to wake the Great nimble-minded, little one. Be as sharp as a hawk and fast as a mouse. Things are about to change."
And with that, she slipped under the door.
"We filled out your star chart for Astronomy together and finished off your Potions essay," said Parvati as she and Lavender trailed Ruby to the Slytherin table. "Sorry if you don't get a good mark; they're not our best subjects, but we thought it'd be better than a zero."
"Thank you," said Ruby. "You didn't have to do it."
"We're your friends," said Lavender delicately.
For a brief second, Ruby thought of breaking down and telling them both everything; how scared she was for Harry, about Tee, finding the Chamber of Secrets, the sulfur and mercury she'd just stolen off Flamel...
She couldn't. They'd be frightened of her. They wouldn't trust her; wouldn't trust any witch who went around actually summoning things from the Other Side. Scrying was one thing, but bringing someone back was another.
Because if you summon things, Parvati had said, they come out nasty. Wrong. Unnatural. You get Inferi or zombies instead of your dead boyfriend who used to love you, then he eats your face off, and then eats your pet rabbitand all your nice clothes, too, for afters. That's why only people who want to kill a lot of other people bother with that kind of stuff.
Ruby was reasonably certain Tee would come out normal, seeing as he wasn't properly dead to being with. At least, she was willing to risk it.
"How are you, Potter?" asked Pansy gooily, leering over at them. "And how's Dizzy Lav and—"
"We're all boss, thanks," Parvati interrupted, slinging an arm around both Ruby and Lavender's shoulders. "Don't listen to her, Lav, she's a posh twat who thinks she's something because her family's in the Twenty-Eight. Ruby's a bit of a posh twat, too, obviously, but she's all right."
Pansy fluttered her eyelashes. "Pardon?"
"Budge over, we're sitting down."
"You can't just—"
The Great Hall seemed to fill with sudden dread as Professor Snape descended from the professors' table, his black robes billowing around him. He looked down his sallow nose at all of them, then said:
"What is the purpose of all this commotion... Miss Parkinson... Patil... Brown... Potter," he murmured under his breath, avoiding her eyes.
Dumbledore must have warned Snape to go easy on her, Ruby supposed.
"It was my fault, Professor," she said, intending to capitalise on it. Turning towards Pansy, she added: "Sorry, Parkinson, for insulting your hair. I never should have said it looked like a rat's nest. And your nose doesn't look that pug-like, I think it's quite cute, actually..."
She stopped, not because of Pansy's murderous look, but because Snape was giving a giggling Lavender one of his own.
"Five points from Slytherin. Behave yourselves," he said shortly, then swept off.
Well, we got off easy, thought Ruby with a shred of relief. At least no one's got detention.
"You'd better sleep with your eyes open, Potter," Pansy growled as they sat down. "Or at least hope you've got seven lives like your nasty cat."
"I'm not worried," said Ruby. "Daphne'll kill you herself for disturbing her beauty sleep if she hears you smothering me with your pillow. She's been worried about getting pimples; or at least, you'd know that if you were a half-decent friend. Oh, and cats have nine lives by the way. Pass the potatoes, please."
"Will you four shut up?" snapped Mafalda from further up the table. "Some of us have N.E.W.T.s to study for, kiddies. If you've got to bitch, bitch quietly. Or else I'll be smothering all of you with pillows tonight."
At least Mafalda's sour mood could always be counted on when nothing else could. Pansy could be heard muttering something to the tune of dirty Squib-blooded Mudblood Prewett under her breath.
Either way, it didn't matter. She shovelled mashed potatoes into her mouth, much to Daphne's disgust and Parvati's amusement.
Theodore Nott, who had watched the commotion with quiet interest, patted the pocket of his robes, as if to check something was still there.
"The number seven," he was saying to Hassan Shafiq, in a very show-off-y tone, "is highly symbolic, because it consists of the union of four, the physical number — referring to the base elements of fire, water, earth, and air — and three, the spiritual number — mind, body, and soul. So seven, really, encompasses everything."
"You should go for Arithmancy next year as an elective," Shafiq advised. "And perhaps Alchemy will be offered again; Flamel may decide to stick around, after Potter dies—"
Ruby clenched her fists in her lap. The bowl of mashed potatoes wobbled ominously.
"It's surprising Potter's lasted this long anyway—"
She was just... so... angry. And that fury became hot and bubbling, making the potatoes bubble, too.
She gasped as magic burst out of her, unbidden, and the just-heated mashed potatoes went sailing out of the bowl, into the air, and splat into Hassan's smarmy, gloriously surprised and probably-stinging face.
Snape was coming over again. Theodore looked amused.
This was not a good look.
This time, she was certainly in trouble.
The morning of Walpurgis Night was cold.
Her nerves felt raw. But not in a bad way.
Maybe not raw. Alive. Awake.
"Harry?" she asked, sitting up and turning to Madam Pomfrey.
The school nurse looked up, worry etched into her forehead.
"The conditions that strengthen our magic can weaken his," she said quietly. "This is a dangerous day for Harry. Why don't you run to the Great Hall for breakfast? An hour won't do any harm."
Supposing she was right, Ruby slipped out of the Hospital Wing, and into the hallways. Instantly, she was startled; the magic woven into the castle felt almost palpable today. She was sure that she could hold the right levels in her mind, too, seeming to understand what each spell was for.
"Isn't it a beautiful day?" breathed Lavender, her arms laden with blossom-studded boughs as she made her way into the Great Hall, smelling of earth and rain.
It was a beautiful day. It was a shame given the circumstances, though, thought Ruby, as Lavender's deft fingers wove the tiny flowers into her hair.
Ruby could tell what Madam Pomfrey meant, though. A few people, boys mostly, stumbled into the Great Hall looking more than a bit out of sorts.
She quickly excused herself from the table to rejoin Harry in the Hospital Wing.
"Your hair looks nice. Who did it?" he asked, as she sat down in her usual spot by the bed.
"Lavender, obviously. And stop trying to be nice! It doesn't suit you."
That elicited a short laugh, though it didn't sound genuine at all.
"Don't—" Harry's ice-cold fingers wrapped around her wrist as his tone turned suddenly serious, and she shuddered at the freezing-burning sensation "—don't do anything stupid, all right?"
"Harry?"
Ruby glanced over, the last of the mirth fading; his eyelids were bruised and swollen shut; his breaths seemed to come shallowly.
"Do something!" she told Flamel, suddenly angry.
He sighed.
"I cannot."
And left her there, stammering as tears bubbled up inside her eyes, gripping Harry's corporeal arm as she sobbed; ugly, loud sobs like a wounded animal, resounding through the Hospital Wing, her magic bubbling too — helpless, useless, impotent no matter how hard she shoved.
Stay alive. Stay alive. Don't go. You can't do this.
You have to wake up! Wake up!
"Harry," she whispered, in the cold shadow of fear cast over the Hospital Wing, "you have to hold on, just a little bit longer. You're right to suspect me. I have been hiding stuff — but it's for your own good, I promise! Borgin gave me this diary at the beginning of the school year when I was in Knockturn Alley with Snape; a person, a real person is trapped in it. Tee scares me, but he can do things, Harry. He's really powerful. And he's got the nigredo for you. All I have to do is set him free, and it's ours. Yours. I just have to go down to the Chamber of Secrets first; it's in Myrtle's toilet, but you have to hold on. Hold on, Harry, please!"
Something told her that someone was coming. With one last look at Harry, lying still in the bed, she dashed out; first, to her dormitory, where she heaped potions ingredients into her bag, sweating buckets as Daphne and Tracey shot her identical dirty looks.
"Where are you going, Potter?"
"Mind your own!" she screeched, and slammed the door. She took the steps two at a time, panting as she sprinted into the familiar surroundings, and scribbled a demand for Tee to repeat the command for opening the Chamber. This time, for some reason, a spiral staircase appeared inside of the hole.
Strange, but she had no time to question it. As soon as she reached the atrium, she scrambled to set up her things, and sat up straight.
Magick Moste Evile was propped open to the correct page, as if it were a recipe book and she was making a cake.
Step one. The opening of the window. Step two. The transmission of information. Step three. Seed the crystal. Step four. Begin the chain reaction.
And of course, wait.
The ingredients that she had stolen from Snape's storeroom a few weeks ago had gone into a potion which would make her able to sense the fabric that separated this world from the next; the one where dead people and Banished objects went.
Or perhaps they were different worlds. She was not quite sure, even with her heightened senses — even though the levels of all the runes were very clear in her mind, and surprisingly, she could hold them all together. Rebirth, transmission, transmutation and creation.
You won't be able to do this on your own, Tee had told her. You'll botch it.
"I won't botch it," muttered Ruby. She wondered why Walpurgis Night had taken effect on her magic this year, rather than last (or any year before that). Could it be because she'd gotten her period?
Well, the book does use menstrual blood in quite a few of its spells, and even says the effect is stronger if it's your own. I wouldn't be surprised.
She wished that someone was down here with her; even though she knew the basilisk was dead, something about being down here made the hair on the back of her neck stand up.
Hephaestus yowled at that moment, as if to assert that he was here. However, he also seemed to be on high alert; he had his little black ears pricked up, and was watching the colossal statue with his large yellow eyes, tail swish-swishing across the marble.
"That, I suppose, must be Salazar Slytherin," she said, as she waited for the bitter-tasting potion to take effect.
The sweet-smelling cherry blossoms that Lavender had plaited into her hair earlier were still fresh. How long had she been here?
She lifted her Muggle watch to her face. The second hand appeared to be moving just fine.
Carefully, she placed one of the blossoms into the middle of the circle of runes she'd drawn, then reached out as if nicking a hole in a pair of tights with her fingernail. Instantly, it began to flicker — bud — fresh flower — wilted — dead.
So the window was open.
Here went nothing.
Now the alchemy was about to begin.
And nestled just in front of the tiny little window, above which the diary floated, pages askew, would be her sulfur and mercury, well-mixed.
Last, the form was needed, so to ensure the salt crystals would form a human body, it would need a template. Hair sufficed, but blood was best.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven beads of blood dripped onto the diary. She tried to focus on the moonlit outline that Theodore had showed her, and forget why he might have even bothered.
Now, it was Tee's responsibility to bring his own spirit and soul along for the ride.
Just... a... She touched her wand to the bubbling mixture... a spark!
The force of it felt something like sticking a fork into an outlet; something she'd never tried, but nasty Piers Polkiss had, and he'd been flung across the room like a ragdoll. It sent her skidding along the ground with a sudden cry.
She seemed to be in a daze, as the room filled with a blinding white light, and yet, she barely seemed to notice herself blink.
Hephaestus skittered away, shading his keen eyes.
Stalactite... stalagmite... Two clear icicles... but not icicles, of course, but salt crystals. The diary hung between them, pages lit by some strange, pale light. The walls seemed to whisper. Her head spun. She wasn't sure which way was up or down.
The blood drained from her cheeks, and she struggled to breathe as the sheer emptiness of that other world that Tee was trapped in bled into hers like a terrible nightmare.
The white seemed to erase her very existence.
She began to forget her name.
Her purpose.
The reason she was here.
At all.
Ruby did not seem to wake until Hephaestus licked her hand with his sandpaper tongue, real and wet and uncomfortably rough, and then after he walked off, his claws clacking across the marble floor, she saw him nudging and pawing at something lying in front of her, more or less human-shaped, glowing softly in the greenish-bluish light.
She got unsteadily to her feet, and followed him, her heart in her throat.
Will Harry get to live? Has everything gone right?
Tee was no eldritch abomination. He was... perfect. Perfectly human, that is.
Staring up at her was a pale boy, about fifteen years old, with bottomless eyes. He was sprawled on the ground and wearing a Hogwarts uniform that didn't look quite like hers. Clutched in the fingers of his left hand was a chunk of something oleaginous that smoked like an Obscurus, so black that looking at it was like looking at nothingness. If she squinted, it looked roughly in the shape of a rook's head.
Ruby could not tell whether he was alive or dead. The light had gone out of his eyes; they were fixed either with sleep or death, like two glass balls framed by sooty, long eyelashes.
But his uniform shirt was staining quickly with red blood, its blossoming fingers pushing greedily against the white. Someone — or something — had slashed him from shoulder to hip, the cut jagged like a lightning bolt.
Maybe she had botched it.
Hemorrhaging. He could probably die in five minutes if he's not already.
She thought of screaming for help, but not even Moaning Myrtle would hear her down here, not that the ghost would care if Ruby felt to her death down here. She pressed her fingers to his pulse, and his heart was beating, weak and fast, like a scared rabbit. His breath was coming out shallow.
Still alive. He can still make it. So can Harry.
Vaguely remembering one of Petunia's favorite TV programs, Ruby knew she was supposed to press a clean piece of gauze or sterile bandage to the wound and apply pressure. If it was a proper hole, you could stuff the gauze inside, too, until you got to a hospital. There was probably a magical way to stop bleeding but she didn't know it.
She didn't have either clean gauze or a sterile bandage, so she pressed her bare hands to the wound, trying to keep the blood from spilling out. It seemed to be working. Her hands were red and sticky with his blood, his skin was clammy and cold, and his shirt wasn't getting any redder or his face any paler.
What time is it? Her watch was smeared with blood.
But she wasn't sure if he was breathing anymore. He had lost far too much blood. His pulse had vanished, and with it, Harry's last hope for survival.
An unbidden gasp-choke-sob escaped her, and she cupped her hand to her mouth, wrapped her own arms around her shoulders as if to feel like a hug, and rocked herself back and forth on her heels.
Mum... Mum... are you there?
The metal cut into her palms, but Lily didn't answer.
Dad? Can you hear me?
Come back. Save us again. Protect us. Please.
They were closer than any other day of the year. So why couldn't they hear her? Comfort her? Make it all alright?
Once she cried herself dry of tears and rid herself of the illusion of a ghostly rescuer, she got to her feet.
She didn't like the sight of the boy's fixed, glassy eyes, so she pulled his marble-cold eyelids over them so that it looked like he was sleeping in his Hogwarts uniform and his shiny prefect badge in the filthy water, instead of dead, like Harry would be soon, sleeping under the ground with their parents, forever out of reach.
Why had she brought him here? This was a place where dead things went. The basilisk had probably finished digesting Anthony's arm and poor Madam Pince down here.
There was only the steady drip-drip of water in the Chamber, a little black cat, and the strange dead boy for company.
She was all alone.