Strangeland

Title

Strangeland



Author

Silver Eros



Rating

R



Disclaimer

This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

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Chapter Three

Interpreting the Soul





If ever there had been a day where the Gryffindors felt completely murderous, it was then.



Even Hermione, who usually managed to keep a level head in the face of most fires, had eyes that were flashing with disbelief and outrage. Her lips were pursed tightly, and she seemed to be holding back something on the tip of her tongue, probably, Harry assumed, because Gryffindor couldn’t afford to lose any more house points.



But Harry didn’t care about house points, really. He was only thinking of how the best way to go about inflicting pain on Snape would be.



No one in Gryffindor spoke as they stormed out of Snape’s classroom, shooting death glares at the Slytherins who were all laughing silently behind Snape’s back.



The trio walked mutely toward the Great Hall for lunch; Hermione had a look on her face as if she was still half furious and then half worried as she glanced at Ron. All the way there, he was muttering incoherent things under his breath, his red-streaked eyes bulging maniacally.



As they passed a suit of armor on the spiral staircase, Ron broke out of his stupor and punched the stone wall furiously with his fist. Blood erupted from his torn skin but he didn’t seem to notice or feel it.



“That fucking bastard! That bloody scum-eating faggot! Two-hundred points, Harry! And detention for a month! I don’t have any bloody time to do detentions with that asshole! I’ve got Quidditch and a mountain of homework to do and this is just ARRRGHHHH!!!!!” Ron slammed his fist into the wall again.



“We’ll go to Professor McGonagall.” Hermione said firmly. “She’ll set things right.”



“She’d better, because this is fucking injustice! Why do I have to take all the bloody blame for Malfoy? I’m going to kill him, the next time I see him. I’m going to kill him. I’m going to take his little throat and -” Ron clamped his fingers around an invisible neck and twisted it gruesomely. Hermione winced.



“If Slytherin win this Sunday, I’m jumping off the nearest cliff.” Ron spat. “I’d rather die than get stuck with Snape after that.”



Harry silently agreed that loosing to the Slytherins would be the most... well, he wouldn’t be able to live it down, if that happened. Even though he didn’t have a months worth of detentions like Ron, he didn’t think he could face Snape ever again. Snape would sneer at them while Malfoy would prance about the school, celebrating the downfall of the Gryffindors... and then Harry would sooner then later lose his sanity and curse the both of them into sewer rats... and then he’d surely get expelled from school.



The teachers and the rest of the students that had already begun to fill up the Great Hall must have thought that a hurricane had hit the school when they stormed into the Hall like a mad swarm of bees.



Ron, Seamus, and Dean weren’t bothering to keep their voices down as they told the rest of the Gryffindors what a greasy slimeball Snape was and that he would do anything to protect the Slytherins from loss of House Points.



“It’s favoritism, I tell you!” Seamus shouted, banging the table with his fist as he sat down. “That’s the lowest, foulest, and most bloody desperate thing a Head of House could do!”



“He KNEW that it was Malfoy, but he couldn’t give detention to HIM could he??” Dean growled back, stabbing a thick sausage with his fork like a spear and smacking it onto his plate.



“You shouldn’t’ve cleaned that rat spleen Hermione.” Ron said bitterly, nearly crushing the cornish pastie into crumbles as he loaded his own plate. “Then I would’ve had some proof.”



“I doubt he would have believed you anyway.” said Hermione, a little defensively.



Harry watched as more and more Gryffindors entered the hall with dumbfounded looks on their faces.



“What happened to all our POINTS???” a fifth year girl asked another.



“We’ve never had less then zero points! I didn’t even know there was such a thing!!”



This scenario felt oddly familiar... he’d gone through something of this sort before...



And as if on cue, the girls’ eyes turned on Harry, as if knowing he had something to do with their loss of points; he almost always did. He should have felt even a tiny bit guilty, but for once, it hadn’t really been his entire fault, he’d only lost them... about fifteen points.



Ginny, though, as she sat down across from Harry, took one look at Ron and rolled her eyes.



“What have you done now?” she asked wryly, pouring herself a goblet of pumpkin juice. “Did you get on the wrong side of Snape again?”



Ron snorted derisively. “We’re always on the wrong side of him.”



“A lot Gryffindors are really upset at the loss of points you know.” she commented lightly. “Two hundred points - that isn’t something we can make up overnight.”



“Who says it was gonna stay that way?” Ron snapped, his nostrils flaring. “Once we talk to McGonagall, there’s no way Snape’s getting away with it. I didn’t do anything wrong!!”



“Well, at least it doesn’t affect the Quidditch Cup.” Harry tried in attempts to brighten Ron’s mood even the slightest. “We’ll win this Sunday, and we’ll give those Slytherins what they deserve.”



Ron turned to Harry, as if contemplating something. His eyes narrowed and he spoke, in a low voice.



“Harry, you think it’s too late to change our tactics? We’ve been playing the same for years now... and maybe if we changed some things around... the Slytherins might be surprised...”



Harry leaned forward intently. “Like how?”



“Dunno, but we’ve played pretty fair and safe right?” said Ron seriously.



“Yeah, we have.” nodded Harry.



“Well, what if we give them a dose of their own medicine... roughen things up a bit...”



Harry’s eyes widened. “But - we can’t afford to give them penalties...”



“And we can’t afford to let them clobber our team into the infirmary like last years match.” Ron countered, his eyes gleaming excitedly. “This could work, Harry!”



Harry bit his lip, not exactly sure that this was the best of ideas, but in the end, he reasoned that either way, he’d have nothing to do with the bloodshed anyway. All he had to do was fly high above the rest of the game, eyes open and searching for the Golden Snitch.



“I guess it’s as good an idea as we’re going to come up with.” he replied, despite his doubts, and Ron’s grin widened.



“Right. So first thing at tonight’s practice, we’ll tell the team... I’ll think of some new moves we could do...”



Ron stopped scowling after that and instead, wolfed down his lunch with an avid expression on his face, and even had the heart to give Ginny a pat on the head before leaving the Great Hall for their afternoon class.



Ginny stared bewilderedly after them.



At the foot of the stairs on the ground floor, Harry and Ron parted with Hermione as she went off to Arithmancy, and they began their long journey up endless sets of moving staircases to the North Tower. Even though they were far from looking forward to another two hours in a hot, stuffy classroom with Trelawny, they were decidedly in better moods then when they’d left Snape’s dungeon. Especially Ron. He was quiet the whole way there, his brows knitted in deep concentration. It was the same look he wore whenever they were playing Quidditch, almost like a different side of him that had been hiding all through the years before he became Captain of the Gryffindor team, and Harry found that he admired that about him.



He didn’t really mind the silence either, because his exhaustion finally seemed be catching up with his body and if it had been an appropriate time and place, he would have loved to fall asleep until dinner. Trelawny’s classroom would have to do.



When they reached the small landing where the ladder dangled from the trap door above them, the sound of other voices told them that they were the last ones there. Apart from Parvati and Lavender, they were the only Gryffindors in that class; the rest were Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws, and they were never late to anything, being Houses that valued perfection.



As they pulled themselves up through the trap door and into the classroom, a strong smell (even stronger then the usual perfumy stench that Trelawny wore) wafted up their nostrils and stung their eyes, threatening to knock them out.



“Ughh!” Ron made a face and plugged his nose. “What the bloody hell is going on in here?”



Harry, who’s eyes were watering as if he’d just cut up an onion, shook his head bewilderedly and walked over to an empty table and sat down in one of the poufs.



Ron flopped down next to him and they both glanced around at the other students, but no one else seemed to know what was causing the odor either. So they waited, while struggling to pull out their homework and text with one hand and covering their nose and mouth with the other.



At that moment, the burning candles dimmed as if someone had turned them down, and Trelawny stepped forth from the shadows like she did everyday. Yet today, she seemed to be wrapped in more raggedy shawls and colorful bracelets then usual.



She lowered herself in her large armchair in deliberate slowness and examined the class with a hazy expression, as if she was trying to look eerily mysterious.



“Welcome class.” she said in her misty voice. “Today,” she looked at each of the students in turn. “we will be working more intimately with our souls... to see beyond the present, the past, and the future.”



Parvati and Lavender glanced at each other and were looking positively giddy with excitement.



“I hope you have all done your charts, as they are an essential part of the adventure we will be embarking on today.”



“You’d think she’d have seen if anyone didn’t do their homework.” whispered Ron, grinning.



Harry suppressed a smile.



“Please take out your charts and books, as I prepare...” Trelawny stood back up from her chair and retreated back into the shadows.



“I doubt she’ll be able to get much out of my past.” Ron shrugged, examining his long sheet of parchment carelessly. “Don’t think there’s anything too harmful on here.”



Harry down at his own, knowing that there was plenty of harmful things in his, and he began to regret taking the assignment so seriously. Perhaps he should have written things like Ripper chasing him up the tree, or the first lemon ice lolly he’d had on Dudley’s eleventh birthday.



When Professor Trelawny came back, she was carrying a humongous china pot that was steaming from the spout and clouding her thick spectacles.



The stench grew ever more stronger and Harry knew that whatever was bubbling in the teapot was the source of the smell.



She placed it carefully on a stool in the center of the room and motioned toward the back wall.



“Please select a teacup and return to your seats so that I can distribute this tea amongst you.”



“We’re not drinking that are we?” Harry said to Ron who was looking just as disgusted as he was.



“Well, I’m not.” Ron replied, following the rest of the class to get a teacup. “I’ll get you a cup, mate.”



“Thanks.” said Harry.



As Professor Trelawny went about the room, pouring the tea, one by one, the faces of the students grew nauseous as their cups were filled. Even Parvati and Lavender, who never did anything but worship Trelawny in awe, were looking unsure.



“Now,” she spoke again, returning the empty pot to the stool. “I will pass out a bottle to each of you, and you will pour the potion into the tea, and then let it sit for ten minutes.”



“Harry - it’s the potion we made this morning in Snape’s class!” Ron hissed as a box was pulled out from beneath a table and small bottles of a deep red liquid floated out of the box and into the air.



Harry’s stomach gave a nasty churn and he was suddenly feeling very nervous. What if he hadn’t brewed the potion right?



Two bottles that were labeled with their names, came bobbing across the room and into their hands and both, taking one look at each other and a deep breath, uncorked them and tipped their contents into their tea. Instantly, the soggy brown tea was stained crimson and the dregs began to spin madly.



Professor Trelawny placed a crystal hourglass next to the teapot.



“Ten minutes of silence now, please.”



Ron crossed his arms and leant onto the table, looking bored.



The sand in the hourglass trickled down in agonizing leisureliness, and Harry was briefly reminded of the muggle saying ‘a watched pot never boils’.



At last, at long last, when the last grain fell, Trelawny spoke.



“In order for this art to work properly, I must press the fact that absolute silence is imperative. I will ask each of you to retreat to a place in the room where you are separated from your classmates and where you can let yourselves drown into your souls. The instructions are written in your books on page ninety-eight. If it turns out that your potions are ill-concocted, I will give you an antidote that Professor Snape has provided me with, so do not hesitate drinking your tea in one swallow. The effects are most prominent when done so.”



What effects? Harry wanted to blurt out. This was the first time he’d felt truly endangered in this class before.



When she gestured for them to start, Harry and Ron quickly claimed a dark corner of the room and sat down on the dusty floor a few feet away from each other. The candlelight was so dim that they could hardly see the color of their tea, but they both felt that in case their potion did turn out to be poison, they didn’t want to make a fool of themselves in front of the whole class.



Harry set down his cup and flipped his book open and thumbed through the pages until he came to page ninety-eight.



Oh crap. He thought at the sight of the page. It was covered in Snitches. Umm... he squinted his eyes to read the instructions.



This me..od of Divination was disc...red in the 15 th c..tury by Francis Ver... It allo.. the mind to wander ..to an uncon..ious state, where you are en..bled to look into ..ur idealities, dr...ms, and fut..re by means of truth unearth.. in your ..ast. The potion requi..ed for this art is ...fficult and can be dange..ous to brew, but the art itself is th.. least complic...ed of all soul-inter....tion methods:



First, swirl your c..p five tim... until the d..egs have resurfa...d again. Then thi..k the words, ‘Un.......e imagi...ire’ and procee.. to drink the en..ire cup of te... And then a whole paragraph of writing after that was completely illegible thanks to a picture of Malfoy receiving a nasty blow to the stomach from a Bludger.



Harry felt like kicking himself when he found that he could not read the incantation he was supposed to think before drinking the tea. Hermione was right. He thought worriedly.



But then, as if the heavens had decided to save him from his misfortune, he found a footnote at the bottom of the page that contained the incantation, unblemished and free of ink lines.



Une vie imaginaire. It read.



Grinning in relief, he picked up his cup, swirled it five times, and closing his eyes, thought, ‘Une vie imaginaire’, then downed the drink, bracing himself for the worst.



He shuddered from the acrid taste, but apart from that, nothing came. No pain, no vision, nothing.



So the potion wasn’t poison. He’d managed to brew it right. He waited for something odd to happen to him, for ‘his mind to wander into an unconscious state’ or whatever the book had said.



He glanced over at Ron who’s back he could see slumped and his head bowed. The classroom was a dead silence. The only sounds he could hear were of people breathing steadily.



He quickly checked back on his book to try and see if he’d perhaps forgotten to do something but although the page was bothered with drawings, it was clear that the book had only offered three steps. Swirl, think, and drink.



He didn’t know whether he should feel relieved that he didn’t have to plunge his soul into his past, or if he was missing out on something that he would come to regret later. He decided that the former was well enough and so just sat back against the wall to wait for the time to pass. After all, like Hermione had also said, they never did anything worthwhile in Divination anyway.



He must have fallen asleep because a while later, he was being shaken awake by Ron who was grinning from ear to ear, his face pink as if he’d been out running.



“Harry! Harry! Wake up! We’re done!”



Harry opened his eyes tiredly and glanced about the room. Others were starting to revive from their unconscious states and looking around them as if they hadn’t a clue where they were.



“Is class over?” he asked sleepily.



“Yeah! Was that something or what? Oh bloody hell, have I got loads to tell you!” Ron laughed, pulling Harry up onto his feet. “What did you see? Anything good?”



“Er...”



“Bugger that then, you have to hear what I saw! NO! Wait!” Ron stopped, clamping his hand over his mouth. “I’ll tell you at dinner when Hermione’s with us. Ohhhh she’s not gonna believe this! She thinks Divinations a bunch of dung!”



“Isn’t it?” Harry furrowed his brows.



“Well, I thought so until today.” said Ron incredulously. “Trelawny’ll always be the fraud she is but Divination’s a totally different story!”

------------------------------

That night at dinner, the Hall was buzzing with talk again, but with a brighter, more excited topic of conversation then of the one at lunch.



Everyone who’d been in that class was telling anyone who’d listen that they’d seen themselves in the future, doing things that they could only have hoped for. There were a fair few that had tears in their eyes, both from happiness and from devastation. Harry imagined that not all were bestowed with joyous news.



Ron looked about to explode with excitement as he waited for Hermione to appear. “Hurry up, ‘Mione -” he kept muttering under his breath impatiently, tapping the surface of the table with his fork.



“HERMIONE!!!”



Harry jumped and nearly knocked over his goblet of pumpkin juice at Ron’s sudden outburst. He turned his head to see Hermione stop at the threshold of the Hall, a look of surprise on her face.



“Get over here!” Ron exclaimed, waving her over. Hermione inclined her eyebrows and hurried over to where they were sitting. “What took you so long?” Ron demanded when she sat down, looking tired.



“I had to ask Professor Vector some ques -”



But Ron interrupted as if she’d never spoken. “You won’t believe this! In Divination today we -”



Hermione snorted.



“- did more on the soul-interpretations and you know that potion we made this morning? Guess what that was for?”



“I’m listening.” she said calmly.



“It was for our class! We had to mix it in this nasty tea that Trelawny gave us -”



“You drank it?”



“Yeah, but it was alright really, wasn’t it, Harry?” Ron said, looking at Harry. Harry didn’t know what to say so just nodded.



“Why did he make us brew the potion then if only the people in Divination are going to use it? That was just a bunch of pointless, time-wasting-”



But Ron waved her comment away.



“That’s not the point! Like I was saying, we did soul-interpretations and the potion made us sort of fly into a dream-ish rendition of our past, and it picked up all these clues in our life that we’d never noticed before and then at the end, those clues all directed into one particular thing that would happen in our future!” Ron took a deep breath. “And you won’t believe what I saw - I didn’t even believe it when I saw it!”



Hermione, looking very skeptic, said, “Go on.”



“I’m getting an award for ‘Best Quidditch Captain In a Decade’ and Gryffindor’s winning the Quidditch cup this year!!!”



He put his hands on his hips and puffed out his chest.



There was a pause.



“But how does that tie in with anything that happened in your past?” Hermione queried, smirking.



Ron glared. “You wouldn’t be so cynical if you’d seen what I’ve seen.”



“Load of rubbish if you ask me.” said Hermione, sighing and serving herself roast chicken and a mound of vegetables.



“You think that I’m not good enough to get that award?”



“No, Ronald. I don’t think that. It’s just that I wouldn’t get my hopes up if I were you. I mean, how many times has any sort of fortunetelling pigwash ever been true? If you ask me, it sounds too much like the Mirror of Erised. You see only what you desire.”



For some reason, Ron’s cheeks blushed a fine red and he pursed his lips. “Just because I didn’t see anything bad, doesn’t mean that everybody else didn’t. Look around Hermione! Look at Parvati! She’s not exactly all roses and daisies is she?”



Indeed, Parvati was bawling like no one had ever seen her bawl before. Lavender was doing her best to comfort her, but to no avail.



“Well then Harry.” Hermione snapped, turning to face Harry. “What did YOU see?”



Harry gulped. What should he have seen? He could have seen a thousand different things.



“I - I ....”



Suddenly, Hermione’s face blanched and she gasped, eyes widening with realization. Of what, Harry knew not.



“Oh Harry...” she whispered fearfully. “Did - did you.... see....”



Ron looked from Harry to Hermione, and then his face dawned with understanding too.



“You... You saw... You-Know-Who???” he asked in a strangled voice.



Harry nearly choked on his kidney and steak pie.



“I what?” he stammered, staring.



“Did you?”



“Um.... no....” he said slowly.



Both Ron and Hermione let out a sigh and smiled.



‘Thank goodness!” she declared, biting into her chicken. “I would have murdered Trelawny if you had. Really, fortune telling is not only imprecise, it’s completely unneeded! People would do better off not knowing how their life is going to end up even before they’ve lived it!”



“I strongly disagree with that!” Ron argued. “Because I liked what I saw, and what I saw isn’t rubbish!”



Harry zoned out of the heated conversation as his mind began to whirl with confusion.



Why hadn’t anything happened to him? What would he have seen if it had actually worked? Would he see Gryffindor winning the Quidditch Cup too? Or would he see himself becoming an Auror, or would he see Voldemort, killing him and then reigning over the entire world? His heart was beating painfully fast in his chest, at the thought of that. What would he have done if he’d seen himself die? And that there was no way to escape or conquer to Dark Lord? What if the prophecy had been wrong and he never had the power to defeat Voldemort in the first place?



“Harry? Harry? Are you alright?”



Harry started and looked up to see Hermione peering at him worriedly.



“You look a bit peaky.” she said. “And you’re not eating much...”



Harry shook his head. “I - I’m fine. Just tired...”



She opened her mouth to reply, but just then, Professor Snape strode up to their table with a venomous look on his face, casting a shadow over the trio.



“Your detentions.” he said smoothly, in a voice like ice. “Shall take place next week. You’re to come to my office after dinner. And you -!” he spat at Ron. “Don’t forget that you will have detention every night for a month.”



Ron’s mouth opened and closed, not unlike that of a goldfish above water. “Every night???”



“You heard me.” Snape replied, sneering maliciously and with a swish of his cloak, whirled on his heel and went back up toward the teacher’s table.



“At least it’s not before the match.” Hermione said in a meek voice.



It looked as if all the good news Ron had seen had been washed away in an instant, like sand on a beach. Harry truly felt sorry for him.



[A/N]

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