Chapter 128: Year Six - Chapter One
I expected many things. What I didn't expect was to end up following the Headmaster on one peculiarly cold morning before the start of the school term into a seemingly innocent trip through the British countryside. Only, the innocent trip brought us both in front of Little Hangleton.
"Headmast...dad," I said very quietly, "what kind of place is this?"
"A dangerous one," Dumbledore answered. "I am heading somewhere quite dangerous, and I felt it best to have someone accompany me for a small part of the trip."
I blinked at that. "You speak as if I wouldn't come along."
There was a small chuckle from Dumbledore. "I think that would have made things considerably more dangerous. Where one can squeeze, two may not. I simply need to check on something, to investigate a hunch. I do not expect it to take long."
"You could have brought more people to help," I retorted. "A good dozen or so, maybe."
Dumbledore stared at me, his eyes twinkling ever so slightly. "If you had to step into a very dangerous place, son, would you bring your friends with you to risk their lives?"
"No, I wouldn't," I replied, "But I suspect that my friends would power through all the same, because clearly, it would worry them more not to be able to come along and ensure my safety."
Albus laughed at my words, "I realize the folly of bringing along a fellow worrywart only now."
"The apple does not fall far from the tree, I guess," I answered with a shrug of my own. "So, where are we going?"
Albus Dumbledore came to a halt at the far end of the country road. A dingy looking gate stood in front of us both, and while it was impossible to think about it, I reckoned the gate itself could use with being left alone. I could just turn around and walk away, now that I thought about it. There was no reason to step forward. There was no reason to take a single step towards the gate. Clearly, the gate was such an average, every-day gate that I wouldn't-
Then the gate exploded, and Dumbledore's wand rested gently in his grip. I didn't even see him grab hold of it. "You should not worry about making noises, I have taken care of it," he remarked, smiling with that patented troll-smile of his that told me that he had done some great charm over the area.
Was that how I looked whenever I smiled at my own fellow students, after having done something strange and bizarre? I realized ever so quickly that Dumbledore was swiftly counter-charming stuff around us. The garden, at first glance seemingly innocent, had a wild variety of poisonous wizarding plants that shriveled up and died at our passage, while the cobblestones turned grey and cracked, curses after curses wilting away as Dumbledore acted like a veritable caterpillar of Trap-Destruction.
I didn't dare speak for fear of distracting him. The door of the Gaunt residence, for it could be nothing but the Gaunt residence -a shack, and nothing more- was the final hurdle that Dumbledore pried open with startling ease.
If it was the Elder Wand doing the power-housing or Dumbledore himself, I probably wouldn't be able to know, but he had made it look easy that perhaps the right answer was a combination of both.
He whispered a few more spells, unknown and alien to the likes of me, and something rattled in the entrance. No, rather than in the entrance, beneath the floors.
The wooden boards snapped away, another wave of the wand literally taking care of propping a small, golden box upwards and in mid-air.
It was then that the Phoenix materialized, Fawkes happily emitting a thrill of pleasant surprise as it landed on Dumbledore's shoulders, the Sorting Hat in hand. The phoenix turned its beady eyes towards me, and I awkwardly waved my hand in her direction. The phoenix gave a simple humming sound of approval at having recognized me, and then resumed her perching.
I took that as the cue to step inside, and quietly walk by Dumbledore's side.
My hands were sweating. This was the do or break moment. It was the one moment I needed to be careful about. I reckoned it wouldn't happen still, if nothing else because of my presence, and of Dumbledore being better off, more at peace.
So when the golden box was opened, when Dumbledore's hand stood poised to strike the ring down, when he hesitated, having seen what the jewel truly was...my mind flooded with thoughts and memories.
It was a final, diabolical curse cast upon the ring itself.
I couldn't help but think of all the people I had loved throughout my entire life, and who had died. I couldn't help but think about how much I missed them, how much I had loved them and now they were forever out of my grasp. I couldn't help but think, whimper and cry as I realized just how deeply I needed that gem, that ring, to stick to my finger in order to see them again.
It was as if someone had taken my heart and shredded it, and only the ring could give it back.
I needed the ring.
I needed to wear the ring.
I knew it was cursed. I knew, deep down, that it was cursed, but it would be fine. If it meant seeing my loved ones again, if it meant talking with them again, even as pale echoes, then I would gladly bear the price of such a curse.
Voldemort was defeated anyway. I wasn't needed in this world. Who the hell cared about Amanda, Megan, Harry Potter or even Albus Dumbledore. Who the hell cared about Wayne, or Professor McGonagall, or stupid wonderful magic when it meant that I could cry and bawl my heart out in the presence of those I had forever lost?
Who cared that this wasn't my world, that the afterlife wasn't the same, that...
That the afterlife wasn't the same, thus the stone was useless to the likes of me.
My right hand slammed into Dumbledore's wrist seconds before he could move a hand towards the ring, and with a growl that surprised even me I swatted the box away, letting it clatter on the ground with a shrill shriek of its own.
"Don't-" I couldn't finish my sentence. I wanted to finish my sentence, but I could not.
Dumbledore had thrown me across the room, a spell striking me straight in the stomach with the force of a battering ram. "Ariana-" he whispered, hoarsely and in tears. "Ariana, I-"
I groaned as I brought my right hand into the inner pocket of my jacket, and then threw the knife within forward. It hissed through the air, flung without aim, but not truly needing it. When in doubt, bring a gun to a knife fight.
Unless your knife can be rocket-charmed to throw at whatever you want it to be thrown, and that knife turns out to be a Basilisk's fang transfigured into a knife.
The blade hit the ring and pierced straight through the stone above, hissing furiously as foam and greenish flames burned upwards in a vortex that snapped Dumbledore out of his reverie.
"The more one loved the departed," I whispered, "The more he'd be tempted to wear the ring."
Truly, what a cruel curse to place on an object meant to view and speak to the dead.
"What have you done!?" Dumbledore literally snarled that, the heat of anger and fury raging across his face as he looked at me with what was, for perhaps the first time in his entire life, real hatred. It lasted the briefest of instants, regret soon taking over.
I held on to my stomach, and grimaced. "Saved you," I whispered back.
Then I fell down, a strange sensation sapping the strength from my legs. Apparently, even the walls of the shack were cursed with some kind of strength-draining magic, and as my vision twirled and I lost the sense of time, I still couldn't help but wonder why he couldn't have just gone to the shack with a caterpillar, and razed it all to the ground.
Or, in proper Cthulhu fashion, used Dynamite until nothing but the box remained.
I needed to get myself some dynamite.
Seriously, I didn't want to die like this; I had yet to earn big money after investing on Amazon and Ebay, and who'd be there to invest in Facebook when that came out too?
No, I couldn't die like this.
I refused to die like this.
I opened my eyes to an unfamiliar ceiling, and was glad when I recognized it as Saint Mungos' hospital room.
What I wasn't glad for was the person standing guard by the side of the bed.
I had a feeling that Professor Snape would have rather been anywhere, but there.
His eyes glowed in the dark, smoldering from the very pits of rage he seemed to harbor within his soul.
Please don't make him see me.
Please God, I want to live.
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