20,092Harry Potter and all associated characters and situations belong to J.K. Rowling. I do not subscribe to J.K. Rowling's social-political views.
Chapter 29: Here Be Dragons (The Dragon's Lair)
The Wilkes Vault
Wizardspace
8:40 p.m. (Hogwarts Time)
"Ginny!" Theo whispered urgently, his face a mask of concentration. "Ginny! Please wake up! I … I can't hold this much longer!"
Finally, the girl began to stir. "Whu … whu happ'n?" she asked groggily. Then, Ginny opened her eyes and was shocked to find herself laying on the floor next to Theo. And with a massive shelf on top of them both, suspended by Theo's Protego shield that was the only thing keeping them from being crushed.
"Well," she said softly. "That's not good."
"Tell me about it," Theo replied through gritted teeth. "I feel like I've been holding this shield for ages."
She noticed that the boy's face was drenched with sweat and his wand hand was shaking. Unfortunately, he wouldn't be able to move out from under the fallen shelves without releasing the spell, and then he would be crushed immediately. Quickly, Ginny scrambled out from under the shield and climbed to her feet.
"Hold on!" she said before running off. Theo shook his head.
"Gee! Great advice!" he muttered to himself as he struggled against the weight of the shelves. After a few seconds more, he squeezed his eyes shut in concentration. His wand hand shook harder, and he knew he was seconds away from losing the spell. And probably his life. There was a ringing in his ears now, and he was barely aware of Ginny's footsteps as she returned. He could barely make out the sound of something heavy hitting the floor nearby and then a scrape of metal on stone. Then, he gave a cry of pain and terror as his shield failed, and the shelves fell down.
It took Theo nearly four seconds of frightened heavy breathing before he realized he wasn't dead and that the shelves had stopped about three inches from his head. He looked around wildly in confusion and then noticed the presence of an orichalcum ingot on either side of him, each turned up on its end. They were now supporting the shelves to keep them from falling the rest of the way.
"ACCIO THEO NO-NAME!"
Theo yelped as he was instantly dragged clear of the shelves by Ginny's spell. He exhaled in relief, and then she helped him to his feet.
"You alright?" she asked quietly. He nodded.
"A little stiff. A few cuts and bruises. I banged my shoulder a bit."
Then, Theo took a closer look at her. The girl had a nasty bump on her forehead.
"How about you?" he asked cautiously. She just waved him off.
"It's nothing. I've had worse from Quidditch practice. Now what happened? And where did the others get off to?"
Theo shrugged. "I got a glimpse of something big, gigantic even, just before it knocked over the shelves and nearly crushed us. I reckon it's after the others. I think we were only under there for a minute or two."
"So, let's go look for them!" Ginny exclaimed. "I reckon they must be in trouble!"
"We're all in trouble, Ginny," Theo answered grimly. "This expedition has gone completely pear-shaped. We need help."
He pointed his wand at an empty space nearby. "EXPECTO PATRONUM." Instantly, Fiver, Theo's Patronus rabbit, appeared.
"Go to Professor Snape," Theo said. "Tell him to come to the broom closet just past the girls' toilet in the Dungeon that's closest to the Potions classroom. We are in terrible danger."
He released the spell to send Fiver on its way, but the silvery rabbit simply flew around Theo and Ginny in a circle very fast before stopping in front of its master with a strangely confused expression. Then, it shook its head before dissipating. Theo was nonplussed.
"Okay, that's never happened before! I hope that doesn't mean we have even bigger problems. Because if a Patronus won't deliver a message, it usually means the recipient is dead!"
Ginny shook her head. "Maybe it just can't find its way out of the Vault. If Amy is right, we're inside a heavily warded wizard-space construct, and maybe that's confusing it since we're technically not on the same plane of existence as the rest of Hogwarts right now."
Theo stared dully at the girl. "That … is something that should have been mentioned before we came in here."
Ginny just shrugged. "So, what's the plan?"
"I'll go find Harry and the others, while you go get help."
She frowned. "Why can't I go find Harry and the others while you go get help! I mean, all you need to do is just get past the door to send a Patronus to Snape!"
Theo was struck by indecision. That was a valid point. He practically growled in frustration. "Okay, one of us needs to follow after Harry, and the other needs to go get help. And no disrespect to your Slytherin-ness, but I think I'm more capable of sneaking around than you, okay?"
Ginny folded her arms. "And on what do you base that conclusion?"
Theo said nothing. He just gave a cheeky grin before whirling around and running towards the next row of shelves. With a soft grunt, he jumped up, only to kick off the shelving unit towards the one opposite it. And then, kick off that wall back towards the first one, jumping from wall to wall, higher and higher until he'd reached the top. Then, the Wu Xi Do student focused his chi and assumed the Leaping Tiger Prana position before jumping straight up to catch the edge of the catwalk high overhead, before pulling himself up onto it and disappearing from view.
Ginny just glared after him. "Show off," she muttered before casting a Disillusionment spell on herself. She wasn't as proficient as Harry was–he'd only taught her the spell just a few weeks earlier–and she couldn't move faster than a walk without becoming visible once more. But she hoped it would allow her to slip past the snake sentries guarding the Vault. She turned and headed for the exit.
Nearby …
"Now then, Lord Wilkes," said a triumphant Toymaker. "Let's get better acquainted."
The Toymaker tapped his wand against the surface of his portrait again, and hissed another command. In response, two of the other giant teddy bears pointed their arms at Blaise and Amy. With a loud bang, what appeared to be brightly-colored confetti streamers shot out to wrap around the pair, wrapping them up tightly and gagging them both. Blaise gave a muffled cry of pain that could be heard through the gag, though. The boy had already been injured just moments earlier by what could best be described as killer Slinkys, and his legs were full of cuts and abrasions. His injuries were not improved by being dragged across the floor and lifted up off the ground to hang from a colossal teddy bear's arm like a side of beef. Amy was also borne aloft in the same manner, with thick confetti wrapping her mouth shut while she struggled impotently.
Harry looked aghast but then took a second to marshal his Occlumency. He knew he would have to keep his wits about him if he and his friends had any chance of survival.
"Releassse them and ssstand down," he hissed authoritatively. The teddy bears gave no response. The Toymaker laughed cruelly from his portrait.
"Nice try, kiddo. If you'd really been my son, that might have worked. But being a Parselmouth alone was never enough to control this vault or the delights it holds. You also have to be a true son of mine, to speak the command words in Parseltongue with my blood in your veins And, I'm so sorry, but whatever debased line of Mudblood offshoots crapped you out into the world isn't quite close enough."
Harry spared a quick glance at Amy. The girl was understandably frightened, but she still had her wits about her, and she returned his gaze firmly. Then, Harry turned to face their captor.
"So, what happens now, Mr. Toymaker?" the boy said with at least the appearance of calm.
"Well, that rather depends on you, your Lordship!" Erasmus said with a sneer. "My immediate inclination is to just order my Build-It Bears to rip you and your little friends to pieces."
He smiled viciously. "And then, send them and a few of my other toys out through that door you conveniently wedged open for me. You're all in your school uniforms, I see. Can I take it that the door opens out into Hogwarts itself?"
Harry said nothing.
"Buuuuut," the Death Eater continued, "I could be persuaded to let your friends go free if you play ball. Metaphorical ball, of course, not literally play ball with me. Though there are plenty of balls to play with in here. Most of them explode."
"You seriously expect me to believe you'll let us go unharmed?" Harry interrupted.
Erasmus laughed.
"Well not you, of course! I'm absolutely going to kill you, and I won't insult your intelligence by pretending otherwise! But you do as I say, and I'll spare these two … along with the entire Hogwarts student body, who I'm pretty sure I could exterminate in about half an hour if I set my will to it. Hell, as an added bonus, I'll even throw in a promise to kill you quickly and relatively painlessly. So buck up, little trooper! Things aren't all bad!"
"Uh-huh. And what exactly do you want from me?"
"Well, eventually, I want to pump you full of Veritaserum. I know I've got some around here somewhere. And then, I'm going to ask you exactly what you know about Tom and me and all our friends, along with exactly who else knows about it. But what I really want from you is something special. Something I've wanted for a looong time. Something I can only get from Lord Wilkes. Well, from a Lord Wilkes who isn't me."
Erasmus raised a hand and gave Harry a beckoning gesture before pointing down at the ground below his portrait. Cautiously, Harry moved forward. Idly, he noticed that while most of the books on the shelves appeared to be obscure books about dark magic, several volumes looked to be Erasmus Wilkes's own personal journals. But Harry's attention was swiftly drawn away from the books on the shelves to the object contained in the case, which was also a book, albeit one that caused Harry's blood to run cold.
It was a thick and very old tome bound and locked in heavy magical chains. But through the bindings, Harry could read two words on the cover.
Anathema Codex.
"It's time, Lord Wilkes," said Erasmus, who now seemed quite serious. "Time for us both to reclaim our family's birthright."
High overhead, Theo crept closer and closer to his friends' position. He could hear the mad Death Eater's ranting, and, despite the seriousness of the situation, he smiled.
"Thank Merlin!" he thought. "Wilkes is monologuing! Maybe we've got a chance after all!"
The catwalk was just above the level of the hanging light orbs, which thus far prevented Wilkes or his deadly toys from seeing him. The ceiling was just ten feet above him, and painted on the ceiling, he could see a massive runic array. The meaning of the array was lost on the Slytherin, as he had taken Ancient Runes. But he assumed it had something to do with maintaining the enormous wizard-space structure of the Vault. Indeed, judging by its positioning, the catwalk seemed to be here mainly to provide easy access to the carved runes overhead, but he was happy to take advantage of the cover they provided. It was slow going though. The catwalk was metal, and if Theo moved too fast, it might be impossible to maintain his stealthy approach. He made a mental note to research for a Charm that would silence footsteps while still allowing speech and hearing, assuming he lived past today.
By now, he was directly over the cluster of teddy bears which were holding his friends captive. He paused to listen to the conversation between Wilkes and Harry, but he was suddenly distracted by another sound from nearby in the Vault, the sound of squeaky wheels. He looked over the side of the catwalk and was surprised to see some kind of automated cart rolling itself towards the others. A dusty-looking sheet covered a large object the cart was transporting, but whatever it was, it looked big to Theo, and he didn't think it was anything good.
The sinister gurgling sound it was making did nothing to set the boy at ease.
"You want me to unlock the Anathema Codex for you?" Harry asked incredulously. "The one your grandfather locked you out of on account of the fact that you were a barking lunatic?"
"Oh don't be rude, Harrikins!" Wilkes chided. "I've never denied being a mad genius, but I hardly ever bark. My bite is so much worse, after all. To answer your questions, though, yes, I want the newly installed Lord of the Ancient and Noble House of Wilkes to unlock the Anathema Codex. All you have to do is touch it and say Open in Parseltongue. There's some information in there I'm quite eager to review once more, and it's been far too long since I've had the chance."
Harry shook his head in consternation.
"I can't believe I'm having to remind you, Wilkes. But … you're dead! Surely you don't think you'll be able to cast any of the spells in there as a portrait?!
"Oh, no, of course not!. I'm not that precocious. Charms and other wanded spells are beyond me in this state. But with the help of my ursine pals and the other mechanisms in the Vault that I enchanted pre-mortem, I can still oversee the brewing of potions and the carving of runes. I just need the potion recipe and the runic array for a particular Codex entry. All the other components I'd already put into place before my unscheduled dirt nap. Tell me, Harry. Have you ever heard of a Qlippothic Cauldron? "
Before Harry could respond, he was distracted by the sound of squeaking wheels drawing nearer. Two of the bears parted, and a large self-propelled cart rolled between them before coming to a stop. A filthy cloth covered what appeared to be a large object standing about 8 feet tall. From the noticeable bubbling sounds it was making (and the hint Wilkes had just dropped), Harry assumed it was some kind of potions cauldron, but an exceptionally large one.
Wilkes grinned down at the shrouded form.
"Allow me to introduce you," he said, "to the new and improved Erasmus Wilkes!"
Then, he hissed another command at the teddy bear nearest the cart. A tentacle ending in a claw shot out of its arm to grab the sheet and snatch it off the cart. Harry was both shocked and confused by what was revealed. The object was shaped vaguely like a cauldron but much taller, more of a vat really. But only the back half of the cauldron was made of metal, either gold or perhaps orichalcum. The front half was transparent, but Harry could not tell if it was made of glass or if it was a barrier of pure magic. Whatever it was, the cauldron was filled to the brim with a luminous green liquid. And standing in the middle, fully submerged, was an incredibly lifelike statue of a nude (and anatomically correct!) Erasmus Wilkes, one cast entirely in silver save for runic inscriptions all over the chest, inscriptions in a filigree of pure gold.
"Or is it some more of Boruslav Lestrange's super-pure Orichalcum," Harry thought ruefully.
"A Qlippothic Cauldron?" he asked aloud as he studied the statue. It stood upright in the cauldron as if at attention. So remarkable was the statue that at first Harry didn't notice an additional detail about the cauldron itself. There were several glass containers attached to the cauldron at the top, situated so that their contents could easily be fed into whatever foul potion filled the thing. Harry blanched to see that one container held a human skull, while another held what appeared to be a mummified house elf floating suspended in some kind of translucent blue liquid.
"Indeed, m'boy," Wilkes said cheerfully while fishing his pipe out of the pocket of his smoking jacket. "A Qlippothic Cauldon. A highly illegal bit of Codex construction designed to facilitate … soul magic!"
Harry's head whirled around to look back to the portrait as the implications became clear. Wilkes continued his lecture while blowing on his pipe. Brightly colored bubbles floated up out of the other end.
"It was most famously used in the 13th century with the creation of the legendary Golem of Chelm. But the underlying Codex ritual was also associated with Galatea, the statue fashioned by the ancient Greek wizard Pygmalion, who then brought it to life, presumably because he couldn't get a date any other way. Before that, it was used by the wizards-kings of pre-Dynastic Egypt to bind the souls of their dying servants into clay figurines called ubshabti so that they could continue to serve faithfully forever. The First Sovereign Emperor of Magical China did something similar. He ordered the ritual execution of an entire legion of soldiers more than 8,000 strong so that the remnants of their souls could be implanted into an army of invincible terracotta warriors to obey his every command. Some say the Emperor was poisoned by his courtiers who feared they would be the next ones to be murdered and then bound into eternal servitude as a piece of ugly statuary."
Harry turned back to the portrait. "And now, instead of a terracotta warrior, you have a naked silver statue of yourself? And you want me to, what, summon your soul from whatever hell you're burning in and plug it in?"
"Well first of all, Harrikins, you are not getting anywhere near the ritual until the very end. My Build-It Bears are perfectly capable of preparing the potion phase of the Ritual of Transference, and I'll be damned if I give you any chance for sabotage. As for my soul, I'm not a believer in any Muggle Hell, and there's more than enough of my soul here in this portrait to animate New-And-Improved-Me down on the table."
Harry looked goggle-eyed at that, and Wilkes just looked down at him smugly.
"Oh, Harry, m'boy! Have you not ever been curious as to just how magical portraits like this one actually work? Or for that matter, why no one who's had a magical portrait done of themselves has ever come back as a ghost? The Homunculus Charm is soul magic! Very weak soul magic, but still soul magic, and pretty much the only kind left in this benighted country that won't get you tossed through the Veil of Death! I suppose the Ministry never realized that every moving portrait in the country carried a tiny sliver of someone's actual soul in it. Or perhaps the Unspeakables know perfectly well but think the benefits of preserving some people's minds post-mortem outweighs the risk of someone modifying the spell enough to serve as a pseudo-Horcrux."
Harry took a step back in horror. "This portrait … is a Horcrux?!"
"Pseudo-Horcrux, Harrykins. A real Horcrux has a whole lot of useful properties, one of which is that it actually allows the soul of its creator to possess and/or kill anyone who touches it-not always in that order, I might add-and also to work magic through them. Sadly, while I am quite insane, I unfortunately am not insane in the right way to create a working Horcrux. That was Tom's gift, not mine. But this portrait does have just enough of the real Erasmus Wilkes in it to function as a conduit for soul magic. The only reason I can do as much magic as I can is because I spent a decade and a small fortune both stretching the limits of the Homunculus Charm with Parselmagic and setting up this Vault so that it would obey the verbal Parseltongue commands of my portrait or any true heir of mine in the event of my death. And even then, the soul transference ritual I'm using wouldn't work if my new body weren't made out of 99% moonsilver with the remaining 1% being the runes on the outer shell cast in pure orichalcum. That incredibly handsome figure standing within the cauldron probably cost somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 million Galleons."
The new Lord Wilkes scoffed at that. "Twenty million? It's a wonder there was any money left for me in the family vault!"
The old Lord Wilkes just rolled his eyes theatrically. "Well naturally, I didn't use my own money! First of all, one of my best friends was an alchemist who had no qualms about breaking those ridiculous laws about using alchemy to transfigure cheap materials into gold and sell it to Muggles. Also, when the Death Eaters weren't busy getting our collective rocks off by torturing Mudbloods to death, we spent a lot of our time figuring out how to embezzle from the Ministry to finance our more ambitious schemes. The taxpayers of Magical Britain contributed more money to my new body than our Gringotts vault did."
"Good to know the government is putting our money to good use, then," Harry said sarcastically. "So why did you need all that … moonsilver, I think you said."
"Moonsilver indeed. It's not normally as durable as orichalcum, but that orichalcum rune scheme should beef it up to near-indestructibility while retaining its normal properties. Moonsilver is bio-reactive and psycho-reactive. It responds to both the body and mind of anyone who magically attunes to it. The very best, most expensive prosthetics are made of moonsilver, because if you stick a moonsilver limb onto a wizard's stump, it will assume the shape of the missing limb and act as if it were a living body part. But the modifications Boruslav and I made to the process mean that my new body will be totally responsive to my will."
The Toymaker took a drag on his pipe and more bubbles floated out of the end.
"When I walk out of here, Harry, it will be in a new body that is a perfect copy of my original form. Only immortal, immune to most spells and completely immune to physical damage, and possessed of all the powers of a Metamorphmagus!"
"And you'll be walking that body out of this Vault and straight into Hogwarts, if I can't stop you," Harry thought to himself. He looked back and forth between the silver statue and the portrait of the man it represented.
"So … transferring your soul into this statue is how you plan to cheat death? As opposed to real Horcruxes like Tom is using?"
Wilkes shrugged. "Everyone in the Pantheon has, or at least had, their own skill sets. And their own plans for defeating Death. Tom only let geniuses, wizards and witches of vision, in on the Plan, after all."
"But Tom was the true genius, the one you all followed?"
Erasmus laughed. "Tom was brilliant. And he had a vision worth following. But his true genius was in seeing the big picture, how everything fit together. He was the polymath of the group. Not as clever as me about Runes and Enchantment, as clever as Boruslav Lestrange was with Potions and Alchemy or as Augustus Rookwood was with the psychic devotions. Hell, he wasn't even as smart as dear old Agatha Rosier was when it came to Herbology. Buuut … he was the one who figured out that he could put Agatha and Gus together in a room, and they'd figure out how to make a Devil's Snare that could be trained as an assassin. Just as he was the one who introduced me to Boruslav and asked us whether it was possible to enchant orichalcum despite its magic resistant properties."
He nodded over to the silver golem. "The answer to that question, by the way, is yes."
"Right," Harry muttered. He looked back at the Qlippothic Cauldron. "So where does the pickled house-elf come in?"
"Oh, Patsy?" Wilkes replied distractedly. "Well, she's not exactly pickled since that's formaldehyde she's floating in. Patsy was the one who tattled to my Granddad that I'd been experimenting with Codex spells, so I had a bone to pick with her. After I dealt with the rest of my family–that's my father's skull up there next to the elf, by the way–I spent a few years making my displeasure known to wee Patsy. Then, after completing the proper rituals, I killed her and put her corpse into a suspension fluid until I needed her. The Ritual of Transference has three requirements, you see: the bone of my father, the flesh of my servant and …"
Wilkes paused and his eyes widened for a second. Then, he began to giggle, softly at first but then louder and louder until he was bent over in barking laughter. Harry, Amy, and Blaise all stared at him aghast, while, up on the catwalk, Theo shuddered at the sound. Wilkes stood back up and wiped tears from his eyes.
"Oh my goodness! I can't believe you got me monologuing! I would say I was embarrassed as a Slytherin, but I suppose it's a consequence of finally having someone to talk to, let alone a captive audience."
He looked thoughtful for a moment. "And you know what?! No matter how tactically foolish it might be, it turns out that monologuing to my captured enemies is kind of fun! I am a diabolical mad genius, after all. Still, if I keep giving in to the impulse to taunt you by answering your questions, we'll be here all day, so perhaps I should set a timer."
With that, he tapped the glass in front of his painting and hissed for several seconds. In response, several things happened at once. The gag covering Blaise Zabini's mouth fell away, though he remained bound otherwise. The Build-It Bear holding him lifted the boy higher up and moved so that Zabini's head was next to a green box covered in silver glitter. As soon as Blaise came close enough, the box popped open and a puppet on a spring popped out. It was similar to the cursed Stake-In-The-Box traps that Harry had read about, the one that had put a half-dozen hit wizards into the St. Mungo's Curse Ward for months before Ron Weasley was able to cure them with Parselmagic. But instead of a snake, this box contained a puppet-like figure, like something from a Punch and Judy show only wearing Slytherin school robes and holding a spray bottle.
The puppet gave a deranged cackle before spraying Blaise in the face with a green mist. Blaise coughed for a few seconds … and then began to laugh. At Wilkes' direction, the Build-It Bear dropped Blaise roughly to the ground. The bound boy could only writhe around on the floor, his laughter growing louder and louder even as his eyes showed more distress and terror.
"You've heard about my Snake-In-The Box, I know, Harry," Wilkes exclaimed. "But this is a modified version. To use when I want to target a single person instead of everyone in earshot. And for when I want someone to die quickly. The Parselmagic Rictumsempra is filtered through an alchemical formula to make an aerosol version of the curse. It makes him laugh, but it also will prevent him from passing out at any point due to hypoxia. He will laugh and laugh until his body gives out due to lack of oxygen or until he has an aneurysm. Based on my prior experiments, he's got between twenty and thirty minutes … unless I am persuaded to provide the counter."
Wilkes grinned broadly as he turned his attention towards Amy, who was still bound, gagged, and hanging like a side of beef from the Build-It Bear's paw.. "Should I use it on the girl too, Harry? Double the laughter, double the fun?"
Then, the mad wizard leaned forward and put his hands against the glass front of the painting. His grin fell away and he suddenly looked deadly serious.
"The Codex, Harry. Or you will watch your friends die laughing."
Up on the catwalk, Theo clutched his wand tightly. He wasn't sure if he could actually do anything to save his friends. But even if he could get them out of this Vault, he would need help of a very special sort to save Blaise. Theo took a moment to center himself. Then, he whispered very softly.
"EXPECTO PATRONUM." Fiver manifested once more, and Theo desperately whispered instructions. This time, to his relief, the spectral rabbit instantly flew off to deliver its call for aid. Unfortunately, the Patronus's departure did not go unnoticed, as the Toymaker saw the flash of light from somewhere near the ceiling. Instantly, he tapped his wand to the glass and hissed out instructions.
In response, one of the Build-It Bears raised a paw towards the catwalk and a blast of magic shot up towards it that exploded it on impact. Theo had to hang on desperately as the catwalk shook madly, but then, the section he was on gave way and began to fall. Steeling himself, the boy jumped down towards a nearby shelf. He grabbed hold of the shelf with one hand and then swung round to point his wand straight at Wilkes' portrait.
"SILENCIO!" screamed Theo.
From his portrait, the Toymaker's eyes widened, and he began to scream silent profanities before gesturing his wand wildly towards the glass that separated his painting from the real world. In response, glowing runes began to appear, runes that Harry knew would cancel the Silencing Spell in seconds.
Meanwhile, the Build-It Bear that had blown up the catwalk fired a second blast towards Theo who tried his best to jump clear. But while he could avoid the explosion that shattered the shelves behind him, there was no good place to jump to. The boy ended up dropping more than 20 feet to the hard floor, and while his Wu Xi Do skills kept him from breaking his neck, they were not enough to prevent the loud crack of a broken bone. Theo screamed and dropped to the ground clutching his ankle in agony, as his wand went flying. It bounced twice … before leaping up across the room to land in Harry's hand.
There was a loud pop from the painting as Wilkes's runic array dispelled the Silencio.
"GREEN!" the mad wizard screamed instructions. "KILL THAT BOY! PINK! RESTRAIN HARRY BLACK! BLUE! GET THAT WAND!"
In response, the green teddy bear stomped towards Theo–CLANG, CLANG, CLANG–with the intention of tramping him underfoot. Desperately, the boy tried to crawl away despite his pain. The pink bear that had earlier restrained Blaise in magical confetti turned its other paw towards Harry, with the goal of doing the same to him. The blue bear, which was encoded with a runic matrix for the Disarming Hex and still had the wands of Harry, Amy, and Blaise stuck to its chest like magnets, began to charge up once again.
Harry knew he had time for only one spell. And only one chance. He whirled around and pointed Theo's wand at Amy Wilkes, who was still hanging, bound and gagged, from the paw of a yellow Build-It Bear.
"EMANCCCCCIPARE!" Harry hissed. A second later, Theo's wand was ripped from his grasp to join the other three, while he was swiftly wrapped up and bound in confetti. The force knocked him to the ground, and then the bear started reeling him back in. At the same time, the green bear was now standing practically atop Theo. It lifted one of its legs and prepared to crush him underneath. Blaise was still helpless and consumed with mad laughter.
But Harry had gotten his one spell off, and it had struck true. Amy's bindings didn't fall away so much as disintegrate under the force of Harry's Parselmagic Unbinding Spell. She dropped to the ground, took a deep breath, and hissed.
"SSSSSSTOP!"
Instantly, all of the Build-It Bears froze in response to a Parseltongue command (albeit through a Charm instead of genuine Parseltongue) uttered by the child of the Toymaker. The bear that was about to crush Theo stood absurdly on one leg with the opposite just inches away from his face. For a full second, there was silence in the Vault other than the sound of Blaise Zabini's mad laughter.
"… wut?" said Erasmus Wilkes.
"RELEASSSSSE USSSS!" Amy hissed again. "AND GIVE USSS BACK OUR WANDSSSS!"
The bear standing over Theo took a step back and went to a resting position, while the confetti restraining Harry and Blaise fell apart. An audible click sounded from the blue bear, and the four wands stuck to its chest popped free and fell towards the ground. Harry's wand never landed. Instead, it shot across the room into his grasp. One second and one hissed Levitation Charm later, the other wands flew to their respective owners.
"WHAAATT?!" Erasmus bellowed in sudden fury. His attention was drawn to the young girl he'd all but ignored except as a hostage up until now. The one who has commanded his creations in Parseltongue and who, he noticed for the first time, had a strong family resemblance to the man's late wife.
Amy caught her wand easily before turning up towards her father's portrait. She grinned at the portrait and gave a jaunty wave.
"Hello, Daddy! SILENCIO!"
Furious at being silenced again, Erasmus stabbed his wand at the glass again to recharge the counterspell array he'd just cast. Harry then raised his own wand and added a Parselmagic Silencio to Amy's, but he still assumed Wilkes would be able to beat it, probably in seconds. He took the opportunity to pull Theo away from the bear that had been about to kill him. Theo still screamed in pain, and Harry's expression grew horrified at the knowledge he'd hurt his friend.
"M-my ankle!" Theo moaned. "I think it's broken!"
"Quick!" Harry yelled in a mounting panic. "What's the spell to heal a broken anke?! Brackium Emendo?"
Immediately, Amy slapped the back of his head. "First of all, Brackium Emendo is for arms but if you do it wrong, it vanishes the bones you're trying to heal! And second, I don't know the Charm to heal ankles, and neither do you. And third of all, STOP PANICKING! You're an Occlumens, Harry! Act like it! "
The slap from Amy followed by the lecture brought Harry up short. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and brought his Occlumency up to its highest level. No fear. No panic. No compunctions. No considerations except figuring out what needed to be done and then doing it.
"It's okay," Theo gasped. "Help is on the way. We just need to get out of here."
"Did someone ask for a ride?" called out a voice from overhead. Harry looked up in amazement. It was Ginny Weasley riding the Cleansweep X-14 they'd found earlier. She cruised through the gap between the top shelves and the catwalk with two other less experimental and expensive Cleansweeps flying in tandem with her.
"Th-thought I told you … to get out," Theo mumbled.
"Yes, and I was almost to the door," the girl said as she came in for a landing. "Luckily for you lot, when I heard explosions, I decided to do what I do best: fly a broom and ignore dumb orders."
Before she could say anything else, there was another pop as Wilkes broke through the Silencing Spells again. Harry tried to cast it once more, but this time, the spell had no effect.
"Sorry, brats! But I never fall for the same trick three times!" Then, Wilkes noticed Ginny's arrival. "Who the hell are you?!"
"Ginny Weasley," the girl said cheekily. "My father helped kill you."
"Then allow me to return the favor. OVERRIDE CODE SSSSIGMA SSSEVEN! IGNORE ALL VOICESSS BUT MINE! KILL EVERYONE IN THE VAULT EXCEPT FOR HARRY BLACK!"
The Build-It Bears jerked back to life and began trundling their way.
"So I'm guessing they're immune to most spells?" Ginny asked.
"Yeah," replied Harry. The girl nodded and pointed her wand at the ground beneath the nearest one.
"SUETSARVINA."
In response, an oily-looking blast of liquid shot out of her wand to splatter on the floor. When the bear took another step, its foot slipped, causing the bear to lose its balance and fall against the nearby shelf.
"That … that's a cooking Charm!" Harry sputtered. "It's for greasing pans before baking so food doesn't stick and it's easier to clean!"
Ginny shrugged as she took aim at the bear's other foot. "I was raised by a stay-at-home witch who likes to cook. You pick up things. By the way, did you happen to notice that Suetsarvina has two S's in it?"
Harry glared at Ginny, but resisted the temptation to stick his tongue at her. Instead, he pointed his wand at three other advancing Build-It Bears that were grouped together.
"SSSUETSARVINA!"
Instantly, both the bears and the entire area beneath their feet were drenched with an oily residue having the consistency of bacon fat, and the three bears suddenly found great difficulty in advancing. Or even staying upright, as one of them lost its balance and fell, knocking two others down with it.
Harry didn't stop, next casting the Grease Charm on the other bears. Within seconds, all of them were coated with a slick, slimy goo that made it nigh-impossible for them to stand. Harry, Ginny, and Amy followed that with a succession of Levitation spells. The bears were almost entirely orichalcum and thus highly magic-resistant, but they were still vulnerable to environmental factors. With the floor super-slick, it was easy for the students to push them around by using the Levitation Charm on their plush fur coverings.
Soon, the bears were in a huge pile, continually trying and failing to pull themselves up to their feet, only to slip and fall once more. It was almost comical, and Ginny actually laughed at the sight. But then, to everyone's surprise, Wilkes also laughed from up in his portrait.
"Oh, hahaha! Very funny! Here, let me add to the general mayhem! ALL ABOARD!"
Harry swallowed at Wilkes' command and the response to it. From elsewhere in the Vault came the sound of dozens of his cursed toy trains, each capable of gutting a person with ease, all let out ear piercing whistles at once.
"ATTENTION ALL TRAINSSSS. PLEASSSE EXIT THE VAULT. KILL EVERYONE YOU CAN FIND ON THE OTHER SSSIDE!"
An eerie calm fell over Harry. "Amy, Ginny. Get Blaise and Theo out of here. I'll be right behind you."
"Harry …!" Amy began, but Harry spoke over her.
"I counted at least twenty of those trains, maybe more. And if even one gets out into the Dungeon, it might kill half the school. Go! And be ready to close the door as soon as possible!"
The two girls glanced at each other pensively before each one pulled one of the injured boys up onto a broom and took off. Blaise wrapped his arms around Amy's waist even as he cried from the intensity of his laughter, while Ginny practically dragged the injured Theo across the broomstick. "Hang on!" she yelled.
Harry set the remaining broom to float in mid-air, ready for him to mount it. He also cast a modified Sticking Charm on his feet so that he could walk through the grease without slipping.
"The trains are nearly at the station, Harrykins!" yelled Wilkes. "Throw down that wand and surrender to me, and I'll call them back. I might even be persuaded to let your friends leave before the trains catch them and eat them alive!"
Harry ignored the ultimatum. Instead, he turned his attention towards the direction of the door, the direction all his friends were heading along with the fleet of killer toy trains. He took a deep breath and focused all his will before casting the Summoning Charm, this time in Parseltongue.
"ACCIO ALL THE TRAINSSSSS!"
It was a difficult spell to cast in the language of serpents. It only had one S, after all, and it really wasn't meant to summon multiple objects with a single spell, let alone dozens of objects. Harry made up for it by being very determined, and the Parselmagic somehow made it work. But Harry's phoenix-feather-and-holly wand shook violently in his hand and grew almost unbearably hot. He focused inward for an instant to activate the Occlumency trick he'd been taught that shut down his pain receptors.
"What the actual hell do you think you're going to achieve here, boy?" Wilkes snarled. "You think you can summon all my trains?! How about if I dump the rest of my toy box out into Hogwarts?! Surrender or I swear I will get my body back and I WILL TORTURE AND KILL EVERYONE YOU EVER LOVED!"
"No," said Harry without even looking up, his concentration utterly focused on the direction of the door and the cursed trains headed towards it. "You will torture no one, You will kill no one. You will get nothing. Voldemort will get nothing!"
And then, Harry could see them, a storm of killer trains headed straight towards him. The same ones that Peter Pettigrew had sent to kill him. That had killed Elizabeth Podmore and crippled Rufus Scrimgeour. Their screaming whistles grew deafening, like a horde of demons. The orichalcum tips gleamed brightly even in the dim light of the Vault as they raced towards him.
Gritting his teeth, he whirled his wand in a wide arc meant to encompass the entire cluster of trains. "WINGARDIUM LEVIOSSSSA!" The swarm of trains began to swirl in the air to match his wand arm, as if they were caught in a whirlwind. Then, at the last possible second, he twisted his entire body and pointed his wand straight up towards the runic array on the ceiling. The swarm followed suit, change course away from Harry and flying up toward the ceiling where all two-dozen of them impacted and then began burrowing madly, their razor-sharp orichalcum tips digging into the masonry and the delicate runes so painstakingly woven into it.
Exhausted but triumphant, Harry turned back to the Toymaker. "Here's a thought experiment for you, Toymaker! What happens to the contents of a wizard-space vault when the runes supporting it are ripped apart from the inside?"
Wilkes' eyes widened in horror, and he began pulling and ripping at his hair.
"NO! PLEASE!" he cried, now begging for mercy. "ALL OF MY GENIUS! EVERYTHING I'VE EVER WORKED FOR! THIS IS YOUR BIRTHRIGHT TOO, LORD WILKES! YOU CAN'T JUST FLUSH IT INTO THE VOID!"
Harry gave a savage grin. "Not all of it, Wilkes. I know what's really important here in this Vault, after all. And I'm taking it all with me."
With that, Harry waved his wand in a wide pattern in front of the bookshelves and hissed.
"WINDGARDIUM LEVIOSSSSAAA!"
It was a strange feeling. Harry was accustomed to using Parselmagic to boost the power of his spells, to make curses more damaging, to extend range or duration. But his experience just now with the Parselmagic Summoning and Levitation Charms had taught him that he could also use Parseltongue to push the boundaries of what a spell could actually do.
Granted, it hurt like hell, but he could do it.
In response to Harry's hiss, all the books save for the chained Anathema Codex flew off the shelves to float in the air in front of Harry. At a gesture of his wand, they all lined up in a single file. Then, with an animalistic roar, Harry whirled his arm violently as if to direct the books to head for the door. Which they promptly did at tremendous speed. Harry nearly dropped to his knees from the exertion. He was pretty sure he could smell something burning, and he hoped it was neither his wand nor his hand.
Shaking off the pain and exhaustion, Harry staggered over to the glass case, shattering the glass with a flick of his wand. Then, he reached in with his wand, tapped the chain on the book, and hissed. "Ooopppeeennn." The magical chains melted away instantly. He reached in with his other hand to retrieve the Anathema Codex. Then, he looked back up at the flummoxed Toymaker while mounting his broom.
"To the victor go the spoils. Goodbye, Toymaker. And for the record," Harry paused and found the strength to sneer at Erasmus Wilkes' horrified expression, "you were never funny."
With that, he mounted the Nimbus and took off, heading for the exit as fast as the broom would fly with the priceless, centuries-old tome clutched under his left arm. The Toymaker watched him depart, consumed by his impotent rage. He knew he'd lost everything. Everything but the possibility of revenge. He stabbed his wand against the glass.
"CODE NINER-OMEGA-RAGNAROK! INITIATE SELF-DESTRUCT!"
In the corridor on the other side of the vault entrance, Blaise and Theo were sitting on the floor with their backs to the wall. Theo's face was a mask of pain, while Blaise was still laughing insanely. Ginny was tending to them as best she could, though her repertoire of healing spells was small and her supply of high-level anti-curse spells was nonexistent. Next to the door was the stack of nearly twenty orichalcum ingots that had previously been blocking the door open. Beside the stack was Blaise's Expanding Book Bag which had several ingots of priceless moonsilver inside. The door to the Vault was still open, with Amy Wilkes standing at the threshold with her wand drawn.
Harry had told her to make sure that none of the cursed toys could escape into Hogwarts, and she would follow that instruction no matter what the cost. The trains had gotten to within thirty feet of the door, and she was just about to slam it shut and remove the key even if it meant abandoning Harry to the Toymaker. It was clear the man wouldn't kill Harry until he had what he wanted, though she shuddered to think what nonlethal tortures might be in store before they could get help and stage a rescue. But then, to her surprise, some powerful magical force snatched the trains up into the air and dragged them back deeper into the Vault. Harry, she assumed, though she could see no sign of her cousin yet.
Amy gripped her wand tightly as she waited to see what arrived first: Harry Black? Or an army of killer toys? She was quite surprised just a few seconds later to see that it was neither.
"LOOK OUT!" the girl exclaimed as she dove for cover. A second later, several dozen rare old spell books and journals flew through the open door and slammed against the opposite wall. Carefully, she poked her head around the edge of the door to see if anything or anyone was following, but she still couldn't see Harry.
She did, however, hear the explosions.
Harry was over halfway to the entrance when the first shelf of toys blew up. He dodged that blast and the second. The third was too close, though, and the impact of the explosion was enough to knock him off his broom. He fell to the ground hard and had the breath knocked out of him. His wand slipped from his grasp only to snap back instantly with a flex of Harry's wand-hand. Dimly, the boy could hear Amy's screams over the sounds of explosions, of lightning fired from Nutcracker dolls, of dragon plushies that fired gouts of flame, of the mad whinnies of rocking horse unicorns with deadly orichalcum horns.
One such unicorn came around a corner just a few feet in front of Harry with murder in its eyes. Harry dove to the side, and as the toy horse moved past him, he pointed his wand at the toy's non-orichalcum flank.
"EXPULSSSSO!" he hissed and then screamed in pain (despite his Occlumency) as a shockwave of force ripped out of his wand to blast the unicorn across the room and into the wall. The force of the recoil had torn up his arm all the way to the shoulder, nearly dislocating it.
The boy staggered to his feet, still clutching the Codex against his chest. He was still twenty feet away from the door. But then, deep inside the Vault, there was a terrifying crack. Followed by a loud rumble.
And then, something that sounded very much like a tornado touching down less than fifty yards away.
The deafening roar was accompanied by a blast of force that knocked Harry down and caused him to slide back away from the exit. He grabbed hold of the end of a shelf to stop his movement and then looked back. There was now a hole in the ceiling where the runic array had been carved. And through the hole, Harry could see …
could see …
could see …
cooouulld ssseeee …
C©cOOu𝞗uLlllDd SsSe3Ee3e3eee …
Harry slammed his eyes shut and willed himself to forget whatever it was he'd glimpsed. He didn't know what lay outside the confines of Wizard Space. He didn't want to know what lay beyond. Indeed, at the moment, he was suddenly terrified of learning what lay … beyond.
The portrait of Erasmus Wilkes, on the other hand, could not take his eyes off the breach, and what he could see through to the other side. He dropped to his knees and started to laugh. And also to cry. He barely noticed when the wrecked remains of his Built-It Bears, his army of toy trains, and finally, the Qlippothic Cauldron and the moonsilver effigy within that was built to house his soul were all slowly lifted up from the ground by the terrible force and sucked out through the hole.
At that exact moment in the Ministry of Magic …
After what Dumbledore and Crouch had learned from Hermione Granger and the other Eye-Spy operatives, the two men visited the Ministry to deliver a personal report to Cornelius Fudge. The Minister was appropriately shocked by the revelation that the Goblet of Fire, on top of everything else, might sabotage the tasks to make them even more dangerous. He had just asked what this might mean for the Second Challenge when Albus's eyes widened in shock and horror.
"I have to go, Cornelius, Barty! I must return to Hogwarts at once!"
"But Albus," said Fudge, "We're in the middle of …"
"At once! FAWKES!"
Instantly, Dumbledore's phoenix appeared in a gout of flame, landed on the Headmaster's shoulder, and then apparated the man away. Barty Crouch and Cornelius Fudge looked at one another in shock and unease.
In all their years of association with the Defeater of Grindelwald, neither had ever seen Albus Dumbledore show fear!
And at Blackstone …
Dobby stood on the front steps of Blackstone, Harry Black's manor house with his back ramrod straight and his hands gripped tightly behind him. From Wales, Hogwarts was hundreds of miles to the north, but that was no obstacle to Dobby's observation. From behind him came a polite cough followed by an inquiry.
"Lar Dobby," said Elmo in a quiet tone that belied the arch professional rivalry the Chief Butler Elf had shown ever since Dobby and his master's arrival at the former Potter Manor. Dobby looked over his shoulder to see Elmo, along with the other house elves-Reebo, Zooty, and Buttercup-standing alongside him. They all bore intense expressions. Neither frightened nor upset, exactly, but focused. Rather like someone in the midst of an already tense and high-stakes game who'd just seen someone else make an unexpected and possibly illegal move.
"If Elmo might inquire, Lar Dobby," Elmo continued diplomatically. "Is this … it?"
Dobby considered the question thoughtfully. "Possibly, Lar Elmo. Dobby is unsure but expects we will find out momentarily. One way or another."
Elmo nodded as if that fully answered the question. All five house elves turned as one and looked steadily towards the north.
The Vault
Resolutely not looking back towards the opening he'd blasted apparently into the fabric of Wizardspace itself, Harry desperately pulled himself across the ground to take shelter behind the shelf he'd grabbed. But already the shelves were creaking, and the lighter objects all around him were getting pulled up off the shelves and the floor and flying up towards the opening.
Harry could still hear Amy screaming for him, though her words were muffled by the deafening winds. He looked in her direction and saw that the door was now noticeably farther away than it should have been. Harry looked around and suddenly realized to his horror what was happening. The shelves all around him were all moving away from the door and also from each other, as if the space between shelves was being stretched. Beneath his feet, the square tiles of the floor distorted and warped into rectangles before his eyes.
The hole he'd blown wasn't sucking out objects into a vacuum. It was causing the very physical structure of Wizardspace to pull and bend, almost as if the Vault was slowly falling towards a black hole. Harry heard a cry from Amy, one he couldn't make out over the wind. She was pointing her wand in his direction and suddenly a sturdy rope shot out of the tip towards Harry. It was Carpe Retractum. Unfortunately, due to spatial distortion, it ended about twenty feet too short to reach him, and Harry was still moving farther from it every second!
Inside his portrait, Erasmus Wilkes stared up at the hole in the ceiling and what lay beyond it with a rapturous expression, still laughing and weeping at once. Then, he heard a sudden sharp noise, and his head jerked back down. The sound accompanied the appearance of a two-foot long crack in the surface of the portrait's glass cover. The air in front of the crack shimmered and then started pouring through the crack in the form of pale blue paint droplets seeping into the Vault and floating up into the vortex, faster and faster. Wilkes looked up to see that the clouds in the painted sky were moving for the first time since they'd been painted, floating down towards the crack to add white paint to the blue. Nearby, Harpo, Wilkes' pet Venomous Tentacula was panicking, its leafy tendrils shaking wildly in terror, as the grass, plants, and statuary near the glass began to blur and dissolve into more paint which then flowed towards and through the opening.
Shaking off his delirium, the Toymaker turned and ran towards the secret passage that led back to his other painting in Harry's Wizengamot office. But as he reached for the door handle, Wilkes was distracted when he noticed emerald green paint dripping off the sleeve of his smoking jacket and flying back towards the crack. He raised his hand to inspect it and could see it begin to liquify, with paint drops sliding off his fingertips faster and faster.
The Toymaker turned back to look at the glass window. It was now covered with a spider web of cracks. The madman raised his arms almost triumphantly and bellowed in mad delight.
"SO THIS IS HOW THE GREAT TOYMAKER FINALLY MEETS HIS END! REDUCED TO A BIG GLOB OF PAINT AND THEN SUCKED OUT INTO OBLIVION LIKE A MILKSHAKE THROUGH A STRAW!"
He threw back his head and cackled wildly.
"NOW THAT'S COMEDY!"
With a loud crash, the glass gave way, and the magical paint that maintained the wizard's post-mortem existence was sucked off the canvas completely. Erasmus Wilkes was still laughing even as his portrait form liquified and merged with the rest of the paint into a multi-colored blob that was swiftly sucked through the hole in the roof.
(Later, when someone thought to check on the portrait hanging in Harry's Wizengamot office, they would find a perfectly blank canvas.)
With a loud grunt, Harry tried to push himself away from his shelter and move closer to the rope Amy had sent, but it was no good. The spatial distortion caused by the vortex slammed him back against the shelf every time he tried to pull himself forward. Over the roar, he heard someone calling his name. It was Ginny. She was standing next to Amy in the doorway holding up one of the brooms. But not the Cleansweep. Despite everything, he almost laughed at her refusal to risk the priceless experimental broom. Priorities, after all.
Both girls were bracing their legs against the doorframe to resist getting sucked into the room. Harry suddenly grew alarmed at the thought of this whatever-the-hell-it-was extending out into the hallway and perhaps the rest of Hogwarts.
"Or further?" he thought with sudden horror. "If this is really a magical black hole or the equivalent, how much of the world might get sucked into it before the breach finally closes?!"
Harry shook his head and focused on Ginny, who looked like she was preparing to hurl the broom in his direction. He shook out his hand, which was still quite numb (he resisted the temptation to look at the burns again, let alone relax his Occlumency pain-block for a second), and then gripped his wand painfully. Ginny tossed the broom into the Vault. Immediately, the vortex snagged it, and it tumbled through the air up towards the breach.
Harry cast. "ACCIO BROOM!" The broom spun madly in the air but did not move in his direction. He gritted his teeth. "ACCIO CLEANSSSWEEP BROOM SSSTICK!" He screamed and almost dropped his wand, but the spell worked. The broom jerked once and then flew to him. He stowed his wand so he could catch the broom without letting go of the precious Codex. Then, Harry mounted the Cleansweep, braced himself, and took to the air heading straight for the door.
It was like flying through mud. He had the broom at its top speed. Even an older model broom like this should be able to fly at over 60 mph, fast enough to get to the door in seconds. Instead, he made it to within 5 feet of the magical rope, which was itself nearly 50 feet from the doorway (or more, as the rope was also being stretched despite its magical properties). But then, the broom stalled, and even in top gear could only advance towards the rope an inch at a time.
There was a sudden crash nearby. Sparing a quick look, Harry saw the half-ton shelving unit behind which he'd taken cover ripped from the ground to fly up towards the breach in huge chunks. Then, he looked back to the doorway. Amy was still holding her wand with both hands, maintaining the rope generated by the Carpe Retractum spell. Ginny was holding Amy around the waist to support her. Even with the tremendous pull towards the breach, Harry was certain if he could just reach the rope, the spell would pull him to safety, as the magic of Carpe Retractum ignored conventional notions of weight and mass. The caster would either be pulled swiftly towards the target object or the object would be pulled to the caster (unless it was beyond the spell's weight limits or else bolted down), depending on the caster's intent. But it would only work if he could grab hold of the rope, which was still five feet away.
Actually, six feet, Harry noted. Distance was still stretching.
There was a louder crash behind him as another row of shelves were ripped out of the ground. Harry ignored it. Up ahead, Ginny was screaming something at him, but he couldn't make it out over the roar of the breach. He only caught one word.
Suicide.
The boy was baffled for a second but then understood. He swallowed painfully at the implications of Ginny's bold suggestion. How the hell had she not Sorted Gryffindor?! But he could think of no better options either. One way or another, a suicide was about to happen.
Harry gripped his broom tightly with one hand and the Codex with the other, focusing on maintaining speed and direction through will alone. He braced himself and took one second for a thought to race through his head.
"If I survive and Draco finds out, he'll never let me hear the end of it."
Then, Harry grunted and kicked himself up off the broom so that his feet landed on the shaft with his hand still holding it tightly. The boy took a deep breath and pushed his terror deeper into the depths of his Occlumency. In a swift motion, Harry stood up on his broom and then leaned forward. The broom tipped over only to instantly be snatched away from him and sucked back towards the breach. But the Suicide Slam maneuver worked. Harry was propelled forward at incredible speed just as Draco Malfoy had been at the infamous 1992 Gryffindor-Slytherin Quidditch match.
The force should have been enough to send Harry skidding 50 yards or more. Instead, he only made it ten feet before his momentum stalled, but that was enough to grab the magical rope and hold on for dear life.
Instantly, Amy twisted her wand slightly, and the rope started to retract … but at a fraction of the normal speed. Harry struggled to maintain his grip with only one hand. Unfortunately, the hand he'd grabbed the rope with was also the hand he'd burned using too much Parselmagic. The pain was so great that he was beginning to feel it through his Occlumency barriers, and his fingers were starting to slip. He closed his eyes in frustration.
"Goddammit." he spat out through clenched teeth. Then, he let go of the Codex which was instantly swept away back into the vortex and grabbed the rope with both hands. Harry started to pull himself along from the other end, but it was slow going, even as the force of the breach's pull increased.
40 feet.
There was another, louder crash as two more rows of shelves uprooted.
30 feet.
Harry had a moment of sheer terror as entire pallets of orichalcum, each weighing tons, upended, and he could only close his eyes and hope not to get bludgeoned as a hailstorm of orichalcum bricks flew overhead. He did not see it, but one ingot missed his head by inches.
25 feet.
With a horrible CRUNCH, the remainder of the catwalk tore itself from its mountings and collapsed into the breach. A thunderclap from somewhere up ahead rather than from behind caused Harry to open his eyes again. It was a massive chunk of plaster ripping away to expose the stonework beneath.
23 feet.
A large crack nearly ten feet long suddenly appeared in the stonework, and the wall itself gave a terrible groan.
21 feet.
Harry's advance stopped and he was suspended in mid air, holding on for dear life. And he realized he had a decision to make. Amy's spell could not pull him to safety. He didn't think he was strong enough to pull himself to safety. And even if he was, he didn't think he was fast enough to do so before the wall gave way. And if that happened, what effect would it have on his friends in the corridor? On Hogwarts itself? On the entire world? And whatever happened would be all his fault!
Three seconds later, Harry would have released the rope and allowed himself to fall into the breach and whatever lay beyond it so that Amy would be forced to abandon him and close the door, thereby breaking the connection to wizard space.
Luckily, only one second later, two figures appeared behind Amy and Ginny with their wands pointed into the Vault. Instantly, more ropes shot forth from the newcomers' wands, one to wrap around each of Harry's arms. The retractive force was instantly tripled, and Harry was yanked forward, flying through the doorway to land in a heap on top of his rescuers.
Amy scrambled to her feet and slammed the door shut. She turned the Wilkes Key and pulled it out of the lock before letting out a sharp "Ouch!" as it shocked her. The girl dropped the key onto the stone floor, where it instantly shattered into a fine powder before blowing away into nothingness. The hallway was silent except for heavy breathing from six of the children on hand and hysterical laughter from the seventh.
Cautiously, Amy felt the door and then twisted the knob. The door opened to reveal nothing save a nearly-empty broom closet. Harry looked up at his unexpected rescuers, both of whom had stood up from the floor and one of whom looked down at him with grave concern.
"Harry?" said Neville Longbottom gently. "Are you okay?" Then, the Gryffindor looked down at Harry's wand hand and cursed in shock.
Harry's palm and fingers had turned black.
Shellshocked, Harry could only stare up at his friend for several seconds before he finally responded in a small voice.
"Fine. I'm fine. Everything is fine." After a second, he added, "How are you?"
Before Neville could respond, Amy shoved him out of the way and knelt next to Harry. She gently put her hands on either side of his head.
"Harry, it's okay," she whispered. "We're all out. We're safe. Just … let it go."
The Prince of Slytherin stared at his cousin almost uncomprehendingly for several seconds. Then, slowly, his face crumpled as he relaxed his Occlumency and both the agonizing pain he'd been blocking and the waves of terror he'd been suppressing-for himself, for his friends, for the world-suddenly washed over him. He broke out into sobs. Amy pulled him into a hug as Harry cried on her shoulder. Ginny and Neville watched the display with concern. Theo was also concerned about his best friend, but he had a broken ankle at the moment which prevented him from moving closer. For a long moment, the corridor was silent save for Harry's traumatized sobs and Blaise's hysterical laughter. Finally, the other late arrival shattered the quiet.
"Will somebody please tell me," asked Ron Weasley, "WHAT THE ABSOLUTE BUGGERING FUCK IS GOING ON DOWN HERE?!"
AN1: Check out the Sinister Man's web presence on the POS wiki, the POS TV Tropes page, and my Discord server (through which you can see advance previews of this story as it is being written). Also, the Sinister Man would be profoundly grateful if you checked out my P*n page and supported my original fiction. Patronage is not necessary to get the free POS previews via Discord.
AN2: What the Sinister Man is reading:
The Evans Boy by lonibal (AO3): Harry Evans is the son of Lily and Snape from their school days, raised by Lily's parents in secrecy and later sorted Slytherin. Monty Potter is the son of Lily and James who becomes the BWL and gets sent to the Dursleys. When Monty comes to Hogwarts, Harry becomes bent on protecting his little brother while concealing their shared parentage and also reconnecting with the father he never knew existed. Excellent well-written story in which Harry is not the BWL but is nonetheless heroic. This story is complete through Harry's sixth year and Monty's fourth. There is a sequel which is now up to the summer after Harry's seventh year/Monty's fifth. There is also a brand new spin-off which is sort of an AU of the main story.
AN3: Special thanks to my Discord editors: AjithSen Ambrella, BaronVonRuthless91, blowback123, EssayOfThoughts Aich, Farsight, Hazrond, hr Jakob jokaro1st, inpixie, Jesse, Jiiti, Jschr, kean, Krisni, Michael Albury, Sigurd, skyari. Thanks guys!
AN4: Vital Statistics (FF.N): Reviews: 20,030. Followers: 21,185. Favorites: 22,841. Communities: 259. Discord followers: 6,362. Go Team POS!