ah, let us mourn, for never morrow shall dawn upon him...
[This post is open for reactions, (short) threads, and thread-hopping.]
As the clock chimes its twelfth hour and midnight descends upon Chicago, so, too, does something else.
The man who suddenly finds himself in the Kashtta's barricaded hallway is dreadfully pale, painfully gaunt, and utterly bewildered. His suit, once fashionable and expensive and ( Read more... )
As the clock chimes its twelfth hour and midnight descends upon Chicago, so, too, does something else.
The man who suddenly finds himself in the Kashtta's barricaded hallway is dreadfully pale, painfully gaunt, and utterly bewildered. His suit, once fashionable and expensive and ( Read more... )
"Yes, much as I'd like to run off in one direction and find whatever it is, there's no way of knowing where it came from. And-- It's too bad there isn't any way of us finding out if it sounded as loud in all portions of the Tower," he says, as Hedwig takes flight again, circling down by where they've just come from and then flying back to land again. "Where were you? Did it seem loud to you?"
Not that they can really garner how loud it was.
"It just-- it didn't seem like it came through a wall or anything from another room. It was like it was in my room somehow, but nothing was happening."
That's equally strange. There was no direction, no indication that it happened at any distance at all from either of them.
"That's a brilliant idea," Harry says at the mention of the protective wards. "I can help with that." He learned quite a bit about it from their time in the forest. "It might not protect from whatever this is, but it's better than doing nothing."
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There must be security systems that capture video and sound from different areas in several of the hallways. It's a matter of studying them, and she tells Harry this as they walk.
It might not help them find out if it was as loud in every corner, but they might see something. A blur, some movement, something to infer as to what it could be. "I was in one of the common rooms, and it was frighteningly loud, as if the noise itself was in the room with me."
It was, as she put, frightening. Crookshanks was very upset.
"I don't like this one bit, Harry," she says in response, decidedly wary, and she falls into step beside him to follow him. Their wands illuminate the pathway, and she takes a deep breath and plunges further toward the vast hallway.
"We must take every safety precaution we have at our disposal, and it was the first thing I could think of," she agrees. Maybe it will protect them, and maybe it won't. The two of them together will strengthen the wards as it is, and it can't hurt to have them in place.
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It used to be something he couldn't understand in the least, but now he's come to appreciate that trait about her so much. She's right about there being security cameras. There must be, and he tells her so.
If they can find out anything at all, it would be worth installing them in the first place. "...and the common rooms aren't exactly next door to our rooms," Harry says. They're not far either, but they're not so close that they would both sound like the noise was coming from within the room. "What does that mean then?"
She won't know obviously, but he has to voice the question out loud.
"I don't like it either, and we're completely out of our element. Everyone is in a sense because it's the Rift," Harry says, and there's no telling what could come through it or what it could do. He follows her down the vast hallway.
And then he glances at her when she speaks, slowing a bit to try to listen to any noise at all. "It's a really good one. We'd use them to protect our camp site in that year we were searching for the horcruxes," Harry says, knowing she never lived that. "They worked brilliantly. It'll be something. It'll protect against something."
Even if it's not whatever has made that sound.
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Once she reads Luna's comment about a man and the name Roderick--not to mention, once things continue to happen, the narration is fairly certain Hermione will catch on quickly as to who it is and what could happen.
Which doesn't mean they might be able to stop it, however...
"Those who've responded to the entry all seem to believe the very same thing. The noise was close to them, and none of us were in the same place at once," Hermione says. It doesn't make any sense, and she likes when things make proper sense, thank you. She looks over at Harry, a bit uneasy, and shakes her head.
"I don't know yet," she says, and the keyword for Hermione here is yet.
Hermione slows down almost imperceptibly before she charges forward again, meeting his gaze. "It's so strange," she says with a small laugh that's humorless but not bitter, either. "Hearing about that year another me lived and I didn't. Part of me wishes I had."
To stand beside him as she ought to, though it's a reassurance they worked. She'd have wanted absolutely everything she had at her disposal to keep them as safe as possible while looking for those horcruxes. Hermione takes a deep breath and keeps walking. "Ms. Jones said we ought to be careful about certain hallways, and to keep out of them should we lose our way."
Not that she feels Harry might necessarily listen, but Hermione's sense of responsibility forces her to carry on the message.
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He follows the length of the hallway, looking up and down the hallway. Harry does not see anything out of the ordinary at all, and he hates that more than anything else. If there was something that indicated a change, they could go with that.
"So it has to be... something about the Tower itself, wouldn't it? There isn't anything that can make a sound everywhere all at once. I suppose anything's possible here, but I don't know," Harry says, shaking his head. Someone could have the power to make a noise that sounds all through any room after all.
The yet almost makes him smile but he doesn't. They've reached the end of the dorms in the hallway, and Harry takes a turn to the right. The narration forgets where the Silent Hall is exactly, but they're headed in that direction.
"Yeah, I know," Harry says, glancing back at her. "It's strange to remember that it wasn't... exactly you there, strange to know the future for a lot of our friends that have fallen through."
Tonks, Remus... both dead.
Luna kidnapped and held as a prisoner so that her dad might give them away to guarantee her safe return.
"If we're too careful, Hermione, we won't get to the bottom of this," he reminds her quietly though he knows what she's saying and why she feels the need to say it.
Even if Ms. Jones hadn't mentioned it, he has no doubts she would be telling him to be careful of where he was walking and what he was doing.
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She doesn't feel quite like she is floundering as much as she could.
The narration also forgets where Silent Hall is, but know, fellow readers, that is where they're headed!
Hermione places her hand on the low of his arm, smiling at him a little. It isn't a smile brought forth by joy, simply something that she does as his best friend, something she always tries to bring to him, a form of comfort in what way she can. Whether that's reaching out with her hand or using her own reason to appeal to his own.
"It isn't necessarily their future any longer, Harry," she says to him softly. "It isn't written in stone and what happens to them from here on, it could be alarmingly different than what was."
This version of Chicago is undoubtedly a dangerous city, but their fate doesn't have to be the same as it was in Harry's timeline.
"There's a delicate balance between too careful and not careful enough, Harry," she says, just as quietly but stubbornly, and she doesn't realize they're now closer to Silent Hall than they ever were.
But they are.
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The psychic abilities and how they've affected the Tower in the past. There are plenty of people who know if one investigates it.
It is a magical journey to the Silent Hall that they eventually got to.
Harry looks at her when she places her hand upon his arm, and he breathes in deeply to settle that feeling in his chest like he doesn't quite know what he's doing with all that information. He can tell she's trying to reach out, trying to comfort him as she always has.
"You're right about that. I see their future, but now that they're here. It sort of changes everything for them," Harry says, and he doesn't think they'll be going back, which means they can live and be happy here, much longer than they could in their own universe.
It's something. It's really something.
"We've always managed before." They are closer to Silent Hall than he has ever been before, and he's lived here longer than she has.
There's automatically that sense about it that something's different. There are those signs warning people to keep out of the hallway, and he knows they are in place for good reason.
It doesn't mean that it will stop him etiher.
"I've heard about that hall before..." Harry murmurs, and it occurs to him that if there were any place in the Tower that could make those noises happen.
It would be here.
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Harry's correct that it is beyond their scope of experience.
Magic is something they could both undertake rather easily, but Chicago has proven difficult in that respect, not because their isn't magic, but because nothing follows a certain norm or pattern.
It's all very much a wild card, and makes it that much more of a challenge.
Not that Hermione is deterred.
"It changes things for us all," Hermione says quietly. He's not the Boy Who Lived here. Or rather, he is not in the way that he was back home, in the non-fictional sense. There's no war with Voldemort. So many things have changed. So many people they've had to learn to live without.
The both of them.
"Harry..." Hermione says in that bossy tone of hers the moment he starts toward the hallway, completely disregarding the signs.
Rules are there for a reason, Harry Potter!
She sighs and goes after him so that he doesn't get himself killed. Or worse, expelled.
Hermione only stops abruptly when she hears a noise, her wand immediately pointing at it to illuminate whatever's caused said noise.
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It's an unearthly sort of sound, one that's sure to shake the two wizards down to their bones.
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It's not within their expertise, and they need help if they're to solve this. They needed the help as well when they were looking for the horcruxes (though this Hermione has no memory of that) and several other times throughout their years at Hogwarts. He certainly wouldn't have gotten through everything he did without Dumbledore, Sirius, Remus' guidance throughout his life.
Strange to think that they are all dead.
Strange and nearly painful but they aren't here any longer. They'll have to find new sources of guidance while they're in Chicago.
Harry looks over at her when she says it and he hesitates a moment before it sinks in heavily. "It does," he agrees, adjusting his glasses. It became something he was so used to, being The Boy Who Lived, Voldemort's accidental horcrux.
It's all different here, and in some ways, it's good. In other ways, it's bad, worrying. They've both had to adjust.
As Harry Potter usually does, he pays no mind to Hermione's bossy tone and starts further down the hallway. He hears her following him at any rate, and it nearly makes him smile.
It would make him smile if her light didn't illuminate someone- something?
Harry tenses jumping back. He raises his wand with one arm, and the other flies across Hermione in an attempt to pull her back with him. There's no running away, no, much as it startled, scared him. There's a list of people and things he's faced up against. Hermione too.
Fear's never gotten in their way before. It won't start now.
"Who are you?"
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Hermione gasps and instinctively takes a step back, but then she's immobilized in place. The sound echoes through the hallway and it rattles her very bones. Her wand remains drawn as her other hand holds on to Harry, swallowing thickly. She wasn't sure what she expected to find in the hall, but they were expressedly told to stay away for a reason.
Alas, they are Gryffindors.
And like any good Gryffindor, they don't run away.
She just isn't sure this man is the reason they have been told to stay away.
She waits for the answer, wondering who this man is, keeping herself in place.
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He steps closer to the pair, head tilted. The air around him is cold and damp and foul.
"Why have you disturbed me?"
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"We heard a noise. It sounded like someone was hurt, and we were trying to find the source."
There's the slightest of pauses, and there's a part of him that wants to look back at Hermione, for reassurance, for some idea at what this could be or what this could mean.
"...are you alright?"
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"It was some sort of resounding whimper. It hardly sounded human at all," Hermione says in agreement, studying Roderick carefully.
"You don't... look alright," she says, before he can even answer Harry's question.
That's how Hermione Granger rolls.
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He presses his lips together.
"I believe I am dead." He lifts a sleeve to indicate the torn fabric, then coughs back what sounds like another, sudden sob. "I-"
And then there is laughter in the form of a low, hysterical chuckle.
"I killed her. And in return, she took the house-and myself! of course-with her."
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"You're--" That would make sense if he was dead, but there's something incredibly painful about that sound that he makes when he says it.
The sob.
It would continue to be painful if it didn't shift into laughter so quickly.
"Killed? Who did you kill?" Harry keeps one hand out, wrapped around his wand though he doubts any magic will help them at the moment. "Look we want... to help if we can. What is it that you want?"
Harry has that sinking feeling that they won't be able to get it for him. Whatever it is. Nor is he certain they would want to get it for him depending on his... motives.
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