Harry Potter and the Crystalline Darkness

Chapter 25

The next day Harry told his friends and Master Nhean, Jun'ko and Tien what had happened. The subsequent grim mood lasted for nearly the whole day before Jun'ko decided enough was enough and regaled them with stories of her trials and tribulations in the Guild until she had managed to lighten the mood and get people laughing again.

"No point moping around about the whole thing," she'd said pragmatically when Remus called her on it. "Voldemort'll do what he wants, when he wants. There's nothing we can do now except prepare for it. Getting miserable won't help."

They'd all had to admit that she was right and Harry and his Battle Guard had determined among themselves to really throw themselves not only into their schoolwork but also their training in preparation.

The day after that found Harry, Ginny, Ron and Hermione in Snape's workroom. Hermione was hovering over her cauldron while the others were perched in various out of the way places. The antidote was almost finished and Hermione wanted to get it up to the hospital wing as soon as it was ready. She was now only waiting for the final colour change.

"Do you know how Professor Snape is?" Hermione asked absently as she watched the cauldron intently.

"I presume that question was directed at me?" Harry asked from where he was sitting with his arms around Ginny. "I don't know. Madam Pomfrey still won't let me in."

Hermione grimaced then she gave a cry of triumph and quickly swung the cauldron off the fire. She placed it carefully on the bench and began decanting it into a large flask. Once she was finished she gave a satisfied smile.

"It's done," she said with relief. "And it's perfect."

"Well, get it up to the hospital wing," Harry said urgently.

Hermione carefully picked up the flask and turned towards the door. Halfway there she paused.

"Um, Harry?" she said in an odd tone. "Do you think you, Ron and Ginny could come with me? I wouldn't put it past Pansy to have asked Crabbe and Goyle to try to ruin this. There is no way they could have gotten into the workroom but this last part is very vulnerable."

The others looked startled for a moment then became very grim.

"Should we get Neville and Luna?" Harry asked quietly.

Hermione paused. "I suppose a few more minutes aren't going to make a difference in the long run," she said almost to herself. "Yes, get them," she continued decisively.

"I'll go. I know where they are," Ginny said and she ran out of the room.

It was about fifteen minutes before she was back with Neville and Luna with her. The three of them had obviously been to the Guild classroom on their way back down as they carried the Battle Guard's swords.

"We thought it might be best to be prepared for all possibilities," Ginny said blandly when her brother raised an eyebrow at her on receiving his sword.

"Good idea," Hermione said firmly. She carefully placed the flask on the bench and strapped on her own sword. "How do we do this?"

"Same as always," Harry replied. "Except that you take my place in the formation. Neville, you drop back into Hermione's place and I'll take point."

The others nodded and Hermione picked up the flask again. Harry led the way to the door and opened it. They made their way through the classroom to the corridor and established their formation.

"Thank Merlin it's Christmas holidays," Neville said in a low voice. "Not that many people around."

"You know, something just occurred to me," Ron said. "Crabbe and Goyle went home for the holidays."

Ginny poked her brother in the back. "And you think that means that we're safe? I'll admit they're probably not going to have left any surprises but they could have done something on behalf of Pansy and Draco. They're not creative but they are very good at following orders."

Ron considered that as they walked warily along the corridor. "Good point," he said finally. "Would they know the timing of the antidote?"

"Pansy probably would have," Harry said from his position at the front. "The ink belonged to her father and Master Nhean said she knew about the antidote. You can only assume she'd know when Hermione was going to finish it."

A grim mood settled over the six students as they started up the stairs. Suddenly Harry held up one hand.

"Everyone, stop!" he said sharply. He then knelt down and examined the stairs in front of them carefully. Through his oversight he could see a strange dark purple tracery in the normal gold and silver energy colours of the school. He considered the matter for a long moment.

"Hermione? Could that antidote handle going through the floo?" he asked over his shoulder.

"No," Hermione said firmly. "Why?"

"There's something wrong with the stairs, I think," Harry replied absently as he examined the tracery some more. "I don't know what it is and I don't recall seeing it on the way down."

"Whatever it is probably activated when the antidote was finished," Hermione said as she peered over Harry's shoulder. "Time-activated spells aren't unusual. I don't see anything obvious though."

The others indicated their agreement to Hermione's statement and Harry frowned.

"I don't think it is anything obvious," the blind man said. "I can see a kind of dark purple tracery in the school's magic where the stairs are. If I hadn't been specifically looking for something unusual, I might not have seen it."

The other's exchanged nervous looks but were prepared to trust Harry's reading of the energy colours.

"What do you want to do?" Neville said pragmatically.

"You must try and get rid of it," Luna said suddenly.

"What?" Harry yelped. "Luna! I don't know what's been done. I was planning on getting one of you to go back and floo Dumbledore and Master Nhean."

"We can't," Luna said flatly. "That will end in disaster."

The others looked at her curiously.

"You've Seen something?" Harry asked quietly. Luna rarely spoke about her visions unless they were actually going to be of some use.

Luna nodded. "It was quite vivid."

Harry frowned then looked at the floor behind them. "Shit!" he said sharply, drawing a reproving look from all three girls. He then looked down and swore again. "Nobody move!" he said with alarm. "Luna's right. That purple tracery runs all along the corridor, including under our feet."

The others froze, alarmed expressions on their faces, and they looked down at the floor with some fear.

"What does it do?" Hermione asked, her voice shaking ever so slightly.

"I don't know," Harry said absently. "Let me see what I can see."

During the first couple of weeks of the school year, Master Nhean had taught him how to use his Oversight in a more aggressive fashion. He had thought that with Harry's fascination with the energy colours, he might be able to grasp the subtleties better than many other Night Warriors were able to. This was part of the reason why Harry had ended up being so distressed when he had thought that he had not seen the poison in Snape's system.

Harry took a deep breath and relaxed as much as he could in a standing position. He then allowed himself to enter something similar to a trance state that would enable him to concentrate solely on the energies and not on anything extraneous. He concentrated on the purple tracery and let his focus sharpen. It took a few minutes for the process to start and once it did he had to forcibly stop himself from tensing up. It looked oddly like his vision was focusing in like a Muggle camera and was extremely disorientating.

Once his focus got closer he could see that the dark purple was in fact a mix of the purple of magic along with a red that indicated aggression and hate, a red-brown that indicated death and misplaced energy and a green-yellow that indicated deceit.

One of the things Nhean had only recently started teaching him was how to leach energy out of various colour strands. This technique only worked on magic and magical items and not on people though Nhean had told him that some of the Guild healers could use a variation on the technique to help emotionally damaged people.

Harry pulled back from his examination of the tracery and looked around. "I think I can do something about this but you can't disturb me while I'm doing it, no matter what happens," he said nervously. "I've only just started learning how to do this and I'm not very good at it. It's also kind of dangerous."

"Are you sure you should be doing it then?" Ron asked with alarm.

"Do we have any other option?" Harry replied, half-dryly and half-seriously.

Ron cocked his head in thought then shook it. "No, unless we knew what the spell was going to do if we moved."

"Something bad," Harry said very dryly. "The energy colours in it show there is a lot of magic involved as well as hate, death, misplaced energy and deceit. I think if we did the wrong thing it could get very nasty."

Ginny had been frowning through all of this. "Did the tracery exist when we left the room? Are you sure that we'll get skewered in some way if we move?"

"I don't know," Harry said plainly. "But are you willing to take the chance considering what the consequences could be?"

Ginny paused. "Well, when you put it that way," she said with a small smile. "What do you need us to do?"

"Be prepared for anything," Harry said flatly. "And make sure I don't fall. I don't think I will but I've never done this much before. We've only just started working on this sort of thing." He paused. "And protect Hermione and that flask at all costs."

"Got it," Ron said firmly. "Protect you and Mione and be prepared for anything."

The tall redhead shifted his sword into a more business-like position and the others followed suit. Ron then nodded to his friend. "Ready when you are."

Harry drew in a deep breath and returned to the trance state. He once again allowed his focus to return to the tracery and he examined the individual threads again. He decided to start on what looked like the easiest of the energy strands, the one indicating deceit. He gently pulled part of the green-yellow strand away from the tracery and began to work on it until he had formed a small rupture in the strand. He gently began to pull the green-yellow energy out of the strand and allowed it to flow into the castle. He watched for a moment and saw the green-yellow fading as it merged with the castle's magic. He sighed with relief when that happened and continued pulling the energy out of the strand. Master Nhean had only taught him this method of clearing an energy strand so far. There were other methods for when you found yourself in an area without a great deal of residual magic, ways in which the wizard or witch could cleanse the energy on their own but he had yet to learn that. Nhean had told him that Hogwarts' magic was strong enough to cleanse the energy without any help and he was relieved to find that was true outside of their training sessions.

As he continued to pull the green-yellow energy out of the strand, he briefly glanced around at the tracery surrounding them, trying to estimate how long it would take. He didn't want to rush this; he was still very much a novice and had no idea whether the process even could be sped up in any way. Finally he sighed and turned his attention solely back to what he was doing.

It seemed to take hours to get to the point where there was no longer any green-yellow energy left in the strand though he suspected it wasn't that long. Someone would undoubtedly have come looking for them. He gave a sigh of relief as the last of the deceit energy faded into the castle and then began the process of feeding some of the castle's energy into the strand as a temporary measure. The castle seemed to understand what he was doing and he quickly found the strand taken out of his 'hands' as the castle took over the job. He paused and tried to send a feeling of thanks to the castle. He knew he'd succeeded when the castle touched his mind briefly with a feeling of affection.

Harry shook his head with something akin to wonder and turned to the next strand. He decided to tackle the red strand of aggression and hate next and slowly teased it out of the tracery. Again he gently ruptured it and began to feed the energy into the castle. He felt more than saw what happened next. The energy tried to fight him, not at the strand for he was able to continue pulling it out easily enough but he distinctly felt the buzzing shimmer of hate and aggression coalesce in the air around him. He grimaced and carefully kept his breathing steady and his attention on where it needed to be, trusting the others to protect him.

He dimly heard Hermione barking orders and then he felt a very subtle magic start. In the trance state he was in he was quickly able to identify it as being the yellow, light purple and scarlet of Luna's magic and he smiled. The odd Ravenclaw had some very interesting depths to her and she was quite capable of being as complex as she was strange; the complexity of her energy colours indicated that with the intelligence, wit, prowess and happiness from the yellow, the indication of psychic powers from the light purple and the courage and loyalty from the scarlet. As he continued to pull the red energy out of the strand, he felt Luna's complex subtlety weave into the aggression and hate and begin to draw it away. As the buzzing shimmer slowly started to move, a second spell was woven into Luna's, strengthening it and Harry recognised it as being the scarlet, brown and burgundy of Neville's magic. He always marvelled at Neville's attributes; while the courage and loyalty from the scarlet was expected for a Gryffindor, the earthy, natural and reliable attributes from the brown and the success, power and elegance from the burgundy were good indicators of the hidden strength within the shy Gryffindor. He paused momentarily and watched with something close to awe as Neville and Luna's magic wove and danced together as they drew the aggression and hate away from the group. He'd never seen that before and briefly wondered whether he and Ginny might be able to manage it. He then sternly turned his attention back to the energy strand he was working on and continued.

He gave a sigh of relief when the last of the red energy disappeared into the castle's magic because at the same time he felt the buzzing shimmer that Neville and Luna had been holding at bay fade as well. It had been rather nerve-wracking having that air of hate and aggression hovering near him, not to mention potentially distracting. He felt that if Luna and Neville hadn't taken the action they had, the shimmering may well have been able to disrupt his work and he rather felt they wouldn't have wanted to see the outcome of that.

Once again as he started to feed the castle's magic into the empty strand, the castle stepped in and took over the job and he turned his attention to the next strand. He eyed the red-brown energy indicating death and misplaced energy with some trepidation and very warily teased the strand out. He could feel it almost pulsing in his mental 'hands' and he took a deep breath before gently rupturing it. As he began to pull the energy out and feed it to the castle to cleanse, he felt a darkness approach him. In an almost instinctive reaction, he closed his eyes. Useless though the gesture undoubtedly was, it gave him some small measure of comfort and allowed him to retain his focus. Once again he was going to have to rely on his friends. As he thought that he felt the castle touch him again, this time with an emotion he didn't quite understand though he almost defined it as determination. Then the touch was gone and he concentrated on his work.

He opened his eyes again as he continued to feed the red-brown energy into the castle, shivering as the darkness grew, becoming cold and isolationist and he began to lose the sense of his friends being with him. He could very dimly hear shouting but that quickly faded and the blackness enclosed him. All he could see through the Oversight was the red-brown energy strand in his hand. He resolutely set his shoulders and continued his work. As he did the strand slowly began to writhe in his grasp and sparks of energy began to crawl over it sluggishly. The sparks slowly began to close in on where he held the strand and when the first one touched his mental grasp, it disappeared in a small explosion, burning sharply and causing Harry to gasp with pain. He gritted his teeth and tightened his grip. More sparks started to crawl around the strand and the blackness deepened. The sparks started approaching where he grasped the strand with increasing regularity and the pain from the small explosions intensified.

Tears rolled down Harry's face from the pain and his breath started coming in short pants but he stubbornly kept feeding the red-brown energy into the castle. Just as the pain began to become unbearable, he saw a small speck of light in the blackness. It slowly began to spread in a delicate filigree through the dark and Harry saw that it pulsed with the colours of scarlet, brown and blue-violet. He smiled through the pain as he recognized those colours. It was Ron and his courage and loyalty from the scarlet, his dependability and reliability from the brown and his honour and devotion from the blue-violet shone in the filigree. The filigree slowly expanded and then was joined by a second speck of light that began to spread in its own filigree pattern. The two patterns complimented each other and as the second spread, Harry recognized the yellow, scarlet and burgundy of Hermione. The energy filigree rippled with her attributes of intelligence and prowess from the yellow, courage and loyalty from the scarlet and elegance and power from the burgundy.

As the combined filigrees spread they began to overpower the blackness. Then the filigrees moved, closing the blackness within it like a net then spreading to the energy strand where they formed a second delicate net over where Harry still firmly grasped the strand, preventing the sparks from touching him. Harry gave a small laugh and slowly finished feeding the red-brown energy into the castle, sighing with utter relief when the last of the red-brown energy disappeared along with the blackness and sparks it had engendered. Again the castle took the strand out of his hands when he began to feed energy into it and Harry was able to turn his attention to the final strand.

He delicately pulled the purple strand out of the tracery and examined it. This was the strand that was providing the magical energy to power the spell. What lay under their feet was still dangerous until he could siphon the energy out of this final strand. While the mechanics of the spell were now disarmed, an explosion of pure magical energy could be just as damaging. As he looked at the strand, he felt the first inklings of weariness trickle through him and he wondered for a moment whether he was going to be able to finish this and whether he perhaps should have tackled this in the reverse order. As this thought sat in his mind, the castle once again touched him, this time gently and with fondness. It then withdrew and after a few moments returned with a second presence. Harry watched with curiosity as the castle seemed to instruct the second presence and then he felt a mental 'hand' reach out to him. He gingerly reached out and grasped that 'hand' and felt strength and energy flow into him, sparkling with the scarlet, green and brown of Ginny's energy colours. Harry basked in the energy flow for a moment, admiring the attributes Ginny displayed; the courage and loyalty in the scarlet, the healing power in the green and the practicality and dependability in the brown. He felt the weariness retreat and then the castle seemed to instruct Ginny again. The mental 'hand' was removed from his grasp and the two presences faded, leaving Harry feeling refreshed and ready to face this last task.

He slowly, gently ruptured the strand though this time he did not need to pull the energy out. The purple energy seemed to almost leap out of the strand and Harry quickly grabbed it and directed it into the castle. He was surprised and relieved that this last strand seemed to be the easiest in terms of what was happening. It did not seem to want to fight him, being almost eager to join with the castle's magic but he quickly found that while he was not having to fight off any attacks, it was very tiring having to direct the magic. He got the distinct impression that if he did not maintain his careful direction the magic would just as happily go in all directions, causing unknown damage as it did so. By the time the last of the energy was absorbed by the castle, Harry was exhausted. He still had one last task to complete however and he very wearily took the other emptied strands into his mental hands. He allowed the castle's magic to drain from them and then began the process of unpicking the fabric of the strands. Once he had started the process on each strand, he did not have to do anything more. It was something like starting a chain reaction; once begun it needed no further impetus.

He watched as the strands unravelled themselves and the tracery under their feet slowly disappeared. Once he was sure it was all gone, he pulled himself out of the trance state and swayed on his feet. Ron and Neville quickly caught him and held him steady.

"Can we move now?" Ginny asked shakily and at Harry's tired nod, she threw herself into his arms and burst into tears.

Harry wrapped his arms around her, looking startled, and glanced around at the others for an explanation. It was then he realized that the others were all looking pale and shaken as well and when Neville and Ron let him go, Luna and Hermione were quick to seek refuge in their arms. Though from what Harry could see the seeking of refuge was mutual.

"Did you know the castle is...well, alive and rather forceful when it wants something?" Ron said in response to Harry's questioning look and sounding rather shell-shocked.

"Yes, I did know the castle is alive, sort of," Harry replied quietly. "What did it do?"

"Did you see what we...did?" Neville asked, his voice sounding almost like it had in his first year.

Harry nodded. "Yes and I can't thank you all enough," he said with gratitude.

"We weren't the ones who knew how to do that," Hermione said, her voice slightly muffled by Ron's jumper while the flask of antidote was still clutched tightly and protectively in her arms. "I mean we did it but the castle showed us what to do...rather abruptly."

Harry stared at them in shock as he gently stroked Ginny's hair as she cried. When her sobbing started to slow, he gently raised her face, cupping it in both hands and wiping the tears from her cheeks with his thumbs.

"What's wrong, dear heart?" he said softly, the endearment coming almost unconsciously.

Ginny gulped and her lips quivered. "I'm sorry," she stammered. "It was just...so sudden and you were so tired." She gave a weak smile. "And Ron's right, the castle can be kind of forceful when it really wants something."

"I'm...kind of glad it was, I really needed some help right then," Harry said gently before leaning down and kissing her tenderly.

Ginny leaned into the kiss though it remained sweet and gentle and when they finally pulled apart, she smile tremulously at him.

"I was glad to help," she said. "It just would have been nice if the castle had asked before it whipped me into there."

Harry chuckled and pressed a kiss into her hair before pulling away slightly and wrapping an arm around her shoulders. He looked at the floor around them and nodded once in satisfaction.

"The tracery's gone," he said to the others. "Are you ready to go on or do you want a few moments more?"

The others exchanged glances then determined expressions slowly settled onto their faces once more.

"Let's get going," Ron said firmly. "Snape's waited long enough for this antidote. I may not like the man but I'll be damned if I let Pansy bloody Parkinson stop me from doing anything."

Small laughs came from the others and they once again established their formation before heading upstairs again. They trod warily the rest of the way up to the Hospital Wing but it seemed that no more traps lay in wait for them. Harry could only conclude that Pansy had only had the opportunity for one throw of the dice.

When they reached the Hospital Wing, Harry knocked sharply on the door and they waited. It took a few minutes for the doors to open and Madam Pomfrey looked at them with irritation that quickly modulated to relief and then concern as she took in their grim expressions and pale faces.

"Have you got the antidote?" she said urgently then her concern took over. "And what on earth has happened to all of you?"

Hermione held up the flask for a moment before clutching it to her body protectively again as Harry spoke.

"We had a bit of an...experience getting it up here," he said blandly, trusting Madam Pomfrey to read between the lines. He wasn't sure he or the others were really ready at the moment to talk about what they had done.

The mediwitch's eyes narrowed and her lips thinned as she looked them over sharply. "Get in here, the lot of you," she said briskly. "I'll have a look at you after I get that antidote into Professor Snape."

The six students shuffled into the Hospital Wing and Hermione carefully handed the flask to the mediwitch. Madam Pomfrey took the flask with equal care and hurried over to a curtained off area of the ward. As they watched she pulled back the curtains, leaving them open in her haste. They could see Professor Snape lying on the bed; he looked unconscious though he seemed to be twitching slightly.

Madam Pomfrey carefully put the flask down on the bedside table and cast protective and stability spells around it before decanting the appropriate dosage. She then paused and took a deep breath before pulling out her wand. She pointed it at the unconscious wizard and said softly, "Enervate."

The Potions Master arched off the bed and screamed as he was brought into consciousness. Harry and the others winced and flinched as they realized how much pain the man must be in to break through his normally iron control. Harry almost felt sick; he more than the others was aware of the kind of pain Snape had been subjected to at the hands of Voldemort and how stoically he had endured it. That he could be reduced to screaming by this poison made Harry shudder as he imagined how bad it must be.

Madam Pomfrey quickly cast the full body bind on Snape and moved rapidly over to force his mouth open. She did not want to leave him in the body bind for long; he would damage himself in his struggles against the pain. The moment she had his mouth open, she poured the potion into it and began stroking his throat to force him to swallow. She then stepped back, released Snape from the body bind and watched. The antidote, if brewed correctly, should begin to act almost immediately to counteract the poison.

The moment the body bind was ended, Snape again arched with pain but as quickly as that had happened he slumped down onto the bed. Madam Pomfrey gave a sigh of relief and watched the Potions Master's body slowly begin to relax and his eyes open in tight slits.

"An'dote?" he rasped weakly.

"Yes," Madam Pomfrey said as she helped him settle himself more comfortably on the bed. "Now stop talking. You need to rest."

Much to her surprise, Snape gave the barest of nods and closed his eyes again, rapidly settling into the relaxation of sleep. She chuckled softly; this was the first time she could ever remember Severus Snape doing what she told him to do without any kind of argument. She would have to remember this moment...and savour it.

Once she was sure the Potions Master was sleeping peacefully, she walked over to where the six students were sitting. Again she was surprised; this group was hardly known for its passivity in the Hospital Wing. All of them were usually champing at the bit to get out, even Miss Granger who should know better, in her opinion.

"Now Mr Potter," she said. "What exactly has happened to the lot of you?"

"Um, nothing too bad," Harry said slightly defensively. "I think we're all just a bit worn out more than anything. I know I am."

Poppy reached out and took Harry's chin in her hand, closely examining his face and eyes before releasing him and casting a few diagnostic charms. She then transferred those charms to the other students and hummed to herself.

"I think you're right, Mr Potter," she said finally and with a certain amount of suspicion. "You all look like you need a good night's sleep. I'll give you all a Pepper-Up Potion and a restorative but I want you all in bed early tonight." She turned to walk towards the potions cabinet then paused and fixed them all with a stern look. "But I want you to tell Professor Dumbledore about what happened. Do you hear me?"

They all nodded obediently and Harry gave her a tired grin. "We were going to do that anyway, Madam Pomfrey," he said with as much cheek as he was able to muster. "As soon as we can get out of here."

Poppy gave him an arch look but soon chuckled. "See that you do, Mr Potter," she said tartly as she took out the large bottles of Pepper-Up and restorative. She quickly and efficiently administered doses to all six students and was pleased and relieved to see them perk up a bit, looking more like their normal selves. She put the bottles away and made shooing motions towards them.

"Now get out of here," she said with a smile. "You're cluttering up my nice clean Hospital Wing."

The students smiled and thanked her before quietly trooping out of the room.

"We'd better go up and see Professor Dumbledore now while we still remember everything clearly," Harry said quietly.

The others nodded. "Yeah, I want to get this over and done with," Ron said firmly and the six students headed for the Headmaster's office.