Harry Potter and the Dark Force

     --- Chapter 3 ---

     Awakening

On Saturday morning Harry left the castle before breakfast and walked across the grounds to Hagrid's hut near the dragon enclosure at the far end of Durmstrang. Already one of the monstrous black lizards was flying swiftly back and forth across the tundra and lakes, hunting for food, white smoke curling from its nostrils. It spotted Harry and dived towards him, only stopping at the last minute as it hit the invisible magical barrier that separated the dragons from the rest of the grounds. It shot a vicious plume of yellow flame against the wall in its anger.

Hagrid was sitting outside mending some strange and lethal-looking spiked nets when Harry arrived. He greeted Harry cheerfully, but Harry could detect a wariness and uncertainty in Hagrid's manner. Of course, he suddenly realized, Hagrid also had less than positive memories of Tom Riddle, having been expelled from Hogwarts as a result of Riddle's trickery and lies.

`Hi, Hagrid,' he said, sitting down on the step of the hut. `I heard from Professor Lupin that you're going to lead an expedition into the forest to try to find mandrakes, so Madam Pomfrey can cure Ron?'

`Yeah,' said Hagrid uneasily, `they reckon there are mandrakes an' other medicinal plants in the swamp aroun' the old fort, the Kryepast, but there's also loads 'o liches an' other 'orrible things creepin' aroun' in there, so it won' be easy ...'

`Well, I want to come with you,' Harry said determinedly.

Hagrid regarded him doubtfully as the stentorian roars of two dragons fighting over a wild boar carcass came from the enclosure. `I donnow, Tom, er, sorry, Harry, I mean, what we gotta do is difficult enough, we don't want ter be putting anyone else at risk, that don' need ter be there, yeh know?'

`I won't be at risk, Hagrid,' Harry said, `I know how to apparate, and to conjure a patronus, and I don't think those liches can be worse than dementors, can they?'

Hagrid stared out at the dragons, still growling angrily at each other and stretching out the boar intestines between them in an ill-tempered tug of war.

`I've got to go,' Harry insisted, `it's partly my fault Ron's like this, and so I have to do something to help cure him.'

`Ok,' Hagrid said resignedly, `if yer determin' then I can' stop yeh. We're going at midday tomorrow, from the main gates.'

Harry returned to the school happy that he was able to do something useful for Ron at last, although he was careful not to let Hermione know of his plans, as he guessed she would not approve and would try to dissuade him. She had still not called him by his name, he realised, and Ginny was still determinedly hiding from him ...

When Harry arrived at the gates Professor Sprout and one of the Durmstrang teachers were already there. Professor Sprout was carrying a large case, a spade and four sets of earmuffs. The Durmstrang teacher, who reminded Harry of Snape, tall and thin with long lank black hair, squinted at Harry, scrutinising him closely. `Hello Harry,' said Professor Sprout, smiling uncertainly at him, `this is Professor Blatchkov, he's going to guide us to where the mandrakes are.'

`Vell, I vill try,' said Blatchkov, still frowning at Harry, `I hav not been in the forest for some years, none of us go in there now; the demons are everywhere.'

Hagrid arrived, carrying a bundle of the nets Harry had seen him working on, almost as if, Harry thought to himself with a sinking feeling in his heart, Hagrid was planning to capture a liche and bring it back with them ...

They went out of the gates and started down an overgrown cart track into the forest, looking around alertly in all directions. The sun was high in the clear sky and Harry could see a long way through the sparse underbrush of the forest, in which there seemed to be no sign of life at all, yet an indefinite sense of menace grew in him as they lost sight of the castle and the track became less distinct and began almost imperceptibly to descend.

After half an hour the track had narrowed to a winding stony path which they had to go down in single file, Hagrid in the lead. The trees closed in, shutting out the sunlight, only a dim greenish gloom showed between the endless stockades of fir trees. Suddenly a horrific shrieking screech sounded above them together with the sound of huge wings thrashing against the foliage. They halted and looked up, Harry took out his wand and raised it. `Dragonhawk,' Blatchkov explained tersely, `not very dangerous.' A grotesque head like an animated gargoyle peered ferociously down at them before opening its beak and repeating the hideous cry and swooping at Harry.

`Stupefy!' Harry shouted and a red beam shot from his wand and struck the scaly underside of the reptilian bird. It emitted another squawk and pulled out of its dive, flapping its huge wings furiously to haul itself back up to the branches above them, shaking its head as if partially dazed.

`C'mon, let's go,' Hagrid said gruffly, and they resumed the laborious descent down the path. The ground became increasingly waterlogged and marshy, the path disappearing beneath pools of stagnant mud. A dismal miasma of rotting plant and animal life filled the mist-shrouded air, along with an acrid unidentifiable smell. Hagrid signalled for them to halt. He sniffed the air distastefully, beard twitching. `Reminds me of somatt,' he growled worriedly.

Professor Sprout went forward a few steps beyond Hagrid and then suddenly came back, looking alarmed. `It's rotweed,' she said, `it puts out soporific fumes which knock its victims out and then dissolves their flesh if they go close enough, which the plant then feeds on. We can't go on this way.'

They retraced their steps and started to cut across the forest floor, avoiding the deceptively inviting clearings which almost always, Blatchkov warned them, housed quicksands with vicious dugbogs waiting inside them to consume unwary travellers.

Finally they came to the bank of a broad strand of muddy rivers, intersecting and dividing between islands of submerged and decaying trees.`The fortress is along this river, quite close now, I think,' Blatchkov assured them. Harry felt exhausted already from struggling through the forest, and even Hagrid looked the worse for wear.

Suddenly the water of the streams started to churn and boil in a dozen places, and as they watched, a thick coiling mass of ghastly white etiolated tentacles rose out of the river and stretched towards them.

`Fascinatin',' Hagrid breathed, gazing entranced at the hideous creature as Harry tried to drag him away.

`Come _on_, Hagrid!' Harry yelled, as Blatchkov and Sprout scrambled up the bank away from the river and half a dozen tentacles distended themselves like maggots as they crawled across the ground to reach them. The creature was heaving its body out of the water, Harry caught sight of a deathly-pale bulb of flesh as large as a house, from which the squirming coils of fifty-foot long tentacles seemed to issue. Hagrid reluctantly retreated and after a few minutes the creature abandoned its pursuit and sank back under the water.

`Balota kalmar,' Blatchkov explained as they sat gasping on a fallen tree at the crest of the bank, `Marsh squid. Very dangerous, ve vill hav to find other vay to the kryepast.'

They continued along the ridge for another mile or so, until Blatchkov led them back down to the river. Here the streams had converged into a wide slow-flowing brown waterway, thick with mud and filth. As they followed round a curve of the river the black walls of the derelict fort suddenly appeared ahead, rising directly from the water, looming ominously over them, shutting out the sunlight. The stink of rotting vegetation grew stronger, and another, more disturbing smell, of putrifying flesh, assailed them as they stepped carefully through the tangle of roots at the waters edge. `It should be near here,' Blatchkov said, `there vos once village here and they cultivated many magical plants.'

`What happened to the village?' Harry asked, wondering whether he might be better off not knowing.

`The demons kept attacking them and finally killed everyone,' Blatchkov said gloomily, `they are very strong, even many wizards are helpless against them.'

They trudged on over the thick web of roots until they were directly opposite the fort. Harry could see that there were a few decomposing huts and shacks beside the fort, now almost completely submerged beneath masses of swamp vegetation.

`There they are!' Professor Sprout exclaimed excitedly, pointing out a thicket of dark green plants at the edge of the water, like outsize dandelions. She handed a pair of earmuffs to Harry and the others. `When I tell you, put these on -- remember the cry of a mandrake is fatal to anyone that hears it. I'll let you know when it's safe.' She approached the plants cautiously as the others looked around for any sign of the liches or other menaces. The smell of rotting flesh was stronger than ever.

Professor Sprout opened the case, which contained a bed of soil and was padded with soundproofing material. She put on her own earmuffs and indicated that the others should do so as well. Then she started carefully to dig up the plants. The mandrake roots had crudely human-like forms, and twisted and flailed at the spade, trying to escape back under the soil as Sprout levered them up and forced them into the case. As she dug up the second the first was already trying to climb out of the case, but eventually she managed to fit three plants in it, and slammed the lid tight on them with obvious relief. She cautiously took off her earmuffs and then signalled to the others that it was safe to take theirs off as well.

`Phew! Those were tough specimens,' she said, `but they should be just what we need to revive Mr Weasley.' She smiled at Harry, but at that instant an ominous clicking and gobbling noise came from the trees at the edge of the marsh behind him.

`Run, disapperate!' shouted Blatchkov, and Sprout managed to disapperate with the case, but Harry felt himself caught in a paralysing wave of total fear as a gang of ten or more skeletal liches emerged from the trees around them and came rapidly towards them, stalking over the ground with sinister robotic movements like an army of the dead, filled with bleak implacable hate for the living. Almost fleshless, their bones were strung together with bands of yellowish ligament, their exposed eyeballs staring fixedly at their victims with a murderous psychotic intensity.

For a moment Harry was frozen in horror, numbed by overwhelming terror, unable to move or act, as the creatures stalked across the clearing, dagger-like hands raised ready to tear at his flesh. Hagrid also seemed helpless, staring open-mouthed at the demonic beings. `Expecto Patronum!' Harry shouted, focusing his mind on returning to the castle and Ron recovering. His patronus hurtled towards the liches, brandishing its antlers at them and driving them back into the forest. `Quick, lets get away, now, Hagrid!' Harry said, pulling at Hagrid's arm with all his strength. Hagrid shook himself and plunged after Harry and Blatchkov out of the clearing.

`Can't we just apparate back to the gates of the castle?' Harry gasped, when they'd reached the high ground above the river again.

Hagrid looked down at him sadly. `I can't apparate, Harry,' he said quietly, `I never finished my education as a wizard, yeh know ...'

`Oh, sorry Hagrid, I thought you might have learned afterwards ...' Harry said, embarrassed at raising the issue of Hagrid's expulsion again. They trekked in silence back along the route to Durmstrang until they came to an impassable swamp, where the land was flooded and submerged for as far as they could see ahead.

`This way,' said Blatchkov, leading them around the edge of the stagnant lake. Harry began to have an ominous feeling again that they were being watched, and as they paused for a moment after climbing over a labyrinth of roots at the edge of the water, he suddenly noticed the surface of the swamp beginning to slide and swirl. Something huge and dark was stirring in the marsh, a curved black ridge spanning a hundred feet of water. As they watched, dumbfounded, a gigantic serpent broke the surface and loomed high in the air above them, unfolding its vast coils. Its head turned to them, its eyes staring at them with predatory intensity, its sword-like fangs still bloody from some previous meal, its breath stinking of putrification and decay.

A wave of freezing air radiated from the creature, the same chilling terror that Harry felt every time a dementor came close. An immobilising nausea and sickness gripped him, as the serpent's neck rose ready to strike at them. Harry felt as if he was falling into an infinite abyss, the world disappearing into a void of unending darkness as he collapsed onto the ground, but Hagrid pulled him up and as the head lanced towards them they ran desperately back into the forest away from the river and the monster until they were out of range of its pestilential breath.

`Smyert-duch, a death spirit,' Blatchkov said, shuddering, `it can take on any form, and whenever it appears, disaster is sure to follow ...'

     * * *

As Harry staggered exhausted into the common room an hour later, Hermione got up from the corner table where she'd been sitting surrounded by piles of books, and came over, frowning at him. `Where have you been?' she asked critically, `You know the exams are only a week away, you should have been here revising.'

Harry collapsed into a chair by her desk, after clearing it of books. `Hermione, we need your help,' he said, `we've just been to the forest to get mandrakes to revive Ron, but the potions master here doesn't have knowledge of medicinal potions, and Madam Pomfrey isn't very confident either, so I wondered if you ...'

She sat down, looking appalled. `Oh, Harry, I really don't know enough to take the risk, I mean, I've _studied_ the mandrake restorative draught recipe, of course, but I've never actually made it. And if I make a mistake then it could kill Ron ...'

`I'll help you,' Harry said, remembering Luna's prediction, `I'm sure you can do it, you've always been brilliant at Potions, haven't you?'

The mandrake draught was more complex than anything Harry had seen before, with 36 different ingredients and intricate preparation instructions. Madam Pomfrey supervised Hermione as she chopped and marinated and combined and mixed the substances, and Harry double-checked everything to make sure it was done at the correct time and in the right way. After an hour of intense work they were still only half-way through the preparation, and Hermione's hands were shaking with stress. The potion was giving off a vermilion steam identical to the description in Driggles Complete Healing Apothecary, and he tried to encourage her by telling her this, but she shook her head in frustration `I can't carry on, Harry, I just can't keep concentrating on it anymore ...'

`I'll take over for a bit,' said Harry, `just tell me what I should be doing. Here, we're at this stage,' He pointed out the place in the recipe, which had a whole chapter to itself in the huge medieval textbook. `only another ten pages to go ...'

`Ok,' Hermione said shakily. `Next, prepare twelve sprigs of Araucaria, which should be of exactly the same length and weight.' Harry's hands began to shake in turn as he very carefully sliced at the tough twigs with a scalpel.

Apart from a horrible moment when Harry nearly mistook `four cloves of garlic' for `four bulbs of garlic' everything went well until Hermione reached the instruction `Take three freshly killed whole mandrake roots and slice into fine disks.'

`I'll go and tell Professor Sprout,' said Madam Pomfrey, `she's brought them up to Miranda's office ready for beheading.'

Harry felt nausea rise in his stomach. To cut up things that looked so much like human bodies made him feel revolted. But there was no other way ... Hermione smiled at him. `We're almost finished now,' she said.

`I just hope it works,' Harry said, voicing a worry that had nagged at him persistently as he'd been struggling with the potion, `Snape is clever enough and evil enough to come up with a spell for which this doesn't work. We know there are cases of incurable spell damage, after all, we've seen them in St. Mungo's.'

Madam Pomfrey returned with the butchered mandrakes in a bowl. They were still moving slightly as Harry picked up his knife and reluctantly started slicing them up. A thick greenish fluid flooded out of the cuts like blood.

`Now it just needs to simmer for an hour and then we can use it immediately,' said Hermione, as Harry stirred the last of the mandrake slices into the mixture.

Professor McGonagall and Ginny came and joined them as Madam Pomfrey prepared to administer the draught. Both Harry and Hermione were shaking with nerves and fear that it might fail. Madam Pomfrey spooned the cooled potion into Ron's mouth as they all watched. Nothing happened for several minutes and Madam Pomfrey started shaking her head sadly, when suddenly Ron's eyes flickered open and he stared at them all dazedly. `What? Hermione ...' Hermione reached out and gripped his right hand, hardly daring to smile yet in relief. Ron tried to push himself up but the effort still seemed beyond him. `Who? ...' He stared in bewilderment at Harry.

`This is Harry, Ron,' Hermione explained, `he destroyed Voldemort after you were knocked out by Snape, you've been unconscious all this time ...'

Ron's eyes seemed to be glazing over again, with an apparently immense effort he managed to gasp `Not unconscious ... trapped in darkness ... ice ... death ...' He collapsed back and his eyes closed again and he was as still as before.

`Ron! Ron! Don't go!' Hermione cried, shaking him, but he seemed completely inert and lifeless once again.

Madam Pomfrey poured more of the potion into Ron's mouth, but there was no further reaction. Ginny began to sob, and Hermione looked on the edge of tears. Harry clenched his fists in anger and frustration.

They returned sadly to the common room with Professor McGonagall. `Maybe we didn't mix it correctly,' Hermione suggested doubtfully.

`You know we did,' Harry said grimly. `There's only one thing for it, we'll have to capture Snape ...'