Madam Pomfrey ended up wanting to keep Harry in the Hospital Wing over the weekend to keep an eye on him.
Harry didn't bother arguing or complaining, knowing it would have no effect.
But he did insist that the broken remains of his broom weren't thrown away. It may be destroyed beyond repair, but he still loved it like a dear friend, and he was not going to let anyone just throw it out.
And so, when Madam Pomfrey was distracted on a Sunday afternoon, Harry grabbed the satchel containing his shattered broom and snuck out of the hospital wing.
He slipped out of the double doors, still dressed in the hospital gown, and his naked feet pitter-pattered against the cold stone floors of the castle as he started making his way upwards towards the Gryffindor Dorm. He made it to the seventh floor when he started to feel a sudden chill.
"Brr…" he couldn't help but shiver when the cold crept upwards from his bare feet and entered his bones.
He was going to pay for this later; he just knew it.
He suddenly paused, hearing the sounds of distant conversation reaching his ears.
His brows furrowed. Someone was heading his way, but from where? This wasn't a single corridor he was in, but there were multiple side corridors that connected to this one.
So where was the conversation coming from?
He looked around for a moment before realizing they were coming from straight ahead – from the other end of the Corridor!
Oh, No way was he going to let himself be caught like this. He'd never live down the humiliation.
He looked around frantically for a place to hide, and noticed a broom closet in the distance.
He jumped inside it.
"Ugh," He groaned. There was a lot of stuff inside it. But still, he persevered and pushed himself inside to hide. He did have to move stuff around to make space.
CLANG!
His head snapped around to see a bronze trophy on the stone floor outside the closet, and he realized it must have fallen out of the closet. He quickly grabbed it and entered the closet – closing the door right as the conversation passed by this corridor.
He took a deep breath and tried not to grimace at the musty smell, and tried to hear what was going on.
His brows furrowed below his spectacles as he recognized the familiar voice.
"... Rose?"
OO OO OO
Rose had a faint smile on her face as she finished tying the box to the feet of an owl.
After she finished securing the gift, she took a step back and nodded in satisfaction. She was sure that all her cousins back home would love the sweets she was sending them. Honeydukes was a famous location, even in America – and its sweets and chocolates were just as well renowned.
She nodded before her eyes fell onto the bag next to her.
There were still two more gifts remaining to be sent.
She bent over and grabbed the two gifts. A frown crossed her face as she looked them over.
Out of the twelve cousins she had from various aunts and uncles back home, only two of them were twins. And they had quite similar tastes in food, except for the small differences that no one was able to tell until one of them made a face and refused to eat anymore.
Needless to say, that made buying gifts for them quite the hassle.
And right now, she had two wrapped gifts in front of her, each with the kind of sweets both of them liked.
She bit her lip as she thought about which one to give to which; otherwise, they would just start fighting. Her gaze shifted between the two boxes for a long moment before she just shrugged and decided to let her aunt – the twins' mother – deal with the mess.
She grabbed a piece of parchment and quickly scribbled a letter to her Aunt Ariel, neatly passing off this headache to someone else.
Grabbing her wand, she quickly shrunk the size of the gifts before quickly tying them to the legs of another owl, along with the letter she had just penned. "To the Great Potter Compound, America. Take it to Lucy Potter," she said to the owls before letting them fly free.
As the Owls escaped the Owlery and flew towards their destination, Rose grabbed her bag and started her descent down the spiral staircase of the tower.
Her footsteps echoed through the descending corridor, with her heels making a clicking sound with each step she took.
Eventually, she pushed one of the doors in a large wooden double doors open and walked forward onto the seventh floor's main corridor. The Slytherin emblem on her uniform gleamed under the light of a nearby torch as she walked past it.
"Rose!"
The red-haired girl turned around to see a blonde girl, her cousin Nicky's age, making her way towards Rose. She had bright blue eyes and wore a thin, practiced smile on her face. She was dressed in the same Slytherin Uniform as Rose, except she was wearing the grey sweater underneath the robes, whereas Rose had chosen not to for today.
It wasn't that cold, anyway.
"Daphne," Rose said, smiling. It was a soft smile, but still warm and inviting. "You were looking for me?"
"Yes. I am having a bit of trouble with the vanishing charm," Daphne Greengrass admitted. "The target object either partially disappears, or it is temporary, and it comes back after some time."
Daphne Greengrass was a Slytherin student in her third year, and Rose had taken a liking to her after meeting her on her first day at Hogwarts. That's why, when she had found out about the mentor program a week after the start of the school year, she had not hesitated to undergo the testing she needed to pass to become eligible as a mentor.
She had taken Daphne under her wing as soon as she could.
"What do you think is wrong with your charm?" Rose asked with a cocked eyebrow as they walked side by side.
"I don't know, maybe I am making a mistake in the wand movements?" Daphne said, a tad unsurely.
"Let's test it then."
Rose drew her wand, a Holly and Phoenix feather wand over 11 inches long and made by Reddington – the best wandmaker in America - and with a silent gesture, she conjured an elegant and elaborate vase. She kept it floating in front of herself as she gestured to the young blonde girl.
"Try vanishing it now."
Daphne nodded and drew her own wand. "Evanesco!" she cried out as she made the appropriate wand movements associated with the spell.
The vase partially disappeared, with the right side fading away from existence in the blink of an eye, leaving behind the left half of the vase floating in the air.
Rose bit her lip as she thought about what Daphne had done. She had pronounced the spell's incantation correctly, and even her wand movements were perfect. The spell looked perfect and should have worked perfectly.
But against all odds, it hadn't.
She turned towards Daphne mid-thought. "What are you thinking when you use the spell?"
"What?"
Rose shook her head. "You won't start learning this till next year, but intent matters. How you are focusing on, what emotions you are feeling while casting the spell - those things matter. Spells like the Patronus and the Aegis rely entirely on emotions to power themselves, but even normal spells are influenced by intent and emotions."
She flicked her wand, and the half vase shattered into dust and disappeared into thin air.
"So, what are you worried about?"
Daphne stayed silent for a long while as they walked. Their footsteps echoed through the silent corridor as Rose patiently waited, allowing the younger girl to speak in her own time.
Then she sighed. "It's Astoria. She hasn't been talking to me lately."
"Why? What happened? Is there something wrong with her?" Rose asked in concern.
Daphne shook her head. "It's not like that. She's… well, she's really angry at me."
"Why?"
The blonde's hand twitched as she resisted the urge to run it through her perfectly maintained hair. "Its because I ditched her at Platform 9 and 3/4ths with her trunk." She finally admitted. "I've tried talking to her about it, to clear the air between us – but there is so much to do that I haven't been able to find the time."
Daphne turned to Rose and asked bluntly, "How am I supposed to be a good older sister if Hogwarts eats up all my time and I can't find any to be there for her? It's her first year, for Merlin's sake!"
Rose replied without hesitation. "You don't need to spend every minute with her. You need the ones that actually matter, and you pick those on purpose instead of hoping they happen."
"So what do I do now?"
Rose considered the question for a moment. "You talk to her, you apologize."
Daphne pursed her lips for a moment. "I tried, several times, in fact. It didn't work."
"No, you explained yourself to her."
Daphne frowned. "Isn't that talking?"
"Not really." Rose's tone remained patient. "You were trying to make her understand why you left her alone. That's different from understanding why she's upset."
Rose knew Daphne well enough to figure out what happened. She had gone ahead with her apology like she approached everything – with a clear, thorough explanation that absolved her of any blame and put it somewhere else, to Hogwarts, to her schedule, to all the assignments she had, or anything that fit. She also knew exactly why that didn't work.
Daphne looked down at the floor. "I had a reason."
"I know."
"I wasn't trying to abandon her."
"I know."
"I just saw some people I knew, and then we started talking, and -"
"And now your sister thinks she wasn't important enough for you to remember her." Rose finished where Daphne stumbled, with a knowing look on her face.
CLANG!
Rose turned her gaze to see where the sound had come from, but saw nothing. Just the corridor going forward, with a single broom closet to the side. For a moment, she considered going and checking to see if someone's pet had trapped itself in there –
Then Daphne spoke again, pulling her attention back to the conversation.
The blonde third year looked down. "I really didn't mean to leave her."
"I know, but it doesn't matter what you meant. That's not what she felt." Rose said in a gentle tone.
Daphne sighed. "So I go and apologize to Astoria again?"
"And this time, you make time for her. You don't need an entire day - You need one meal with her. One walk through the grounds after your classes. One hour where she isn't competing with your friends, your classes, your homework or anything else." Her voice softened. "She doesn't need you every moment. She needs to know that when it matters, you'll be there."
Daphne nodded reluctantly. "That sounds simple when you say it."
"Most things usually are."
"That is absolutely not true." Daphne vehemently denied.
Rose's lips twitched. "No. I suppose it isn't."
The blonde girl glanced at her. "How do you always make everything sound so easy?"
It's a talent." Rose shrugged with a smile. She allowed Daphne the smile that appeared on the younger girl's face before she said. "My uncle says that problems become easier once you stop making excuses for them. I've followed it this far, and it hasn't failed me yet."
Daphne was quiet for a moment. "Are you always this serious?"
"Yes."
"That sounds exhausting." Daphne couldn't imagine having to be this careful and calculating -
"It can be."
Daphne looked increasingly thoughtful. "So, I should just apologize, spend some time with her, and let her be angry if she still wants to be."
"Yes."
"Even if she's being unreasonable?"
Rose's smile remained just as patient as it had been since the start of this conversation. "Yes."
Daphne frowned. "Really?"
"You don't get to decide whether someone is allowed to feel hurt by you just because you think their reaction is unfair."
It was a simple principle, and one Rose wholeheartedly believed in.
Or at least, she thought she did.
Everyone felt things differently. Some things might seem unimportant to one person and be life changing to other, but that didn't mean either person was wrong. It just meant that they weren't standing in the same place.
Since she had been young, due to being the heiress of the British Branch of Potter's, Rose had been raised with the knowledge and education required for such a post. She had been taught how to keep those differences under her control and how not to indulge them. She'd been taught to not allow her feelings to dictate her behaviour, as that could have further consequences than she expected – but that didn't mean she had to ignore them.
She glanced at Daphne. "You're her older sister. That means you'll disappoint her sometimes."
The younger girl grimaced. "That's reassuring."
"It wasn't meant to be."
"I noticed."
Rose's lips twitched. "But you're allowed to make mistakes. What matters is whether you're willing to correct them."
Daphne smiled slightly. "You really believe that?"
"Yes," she said, without hesitation.
She did believe it. Maybe because she had been thinking about it more often lately.
Family wasn't effortless, and blood didn't magically create understanding. It did not erase the differences, and it certainly didn't create affection where none existed.
But…
Sometimes people simply needed time. You couldn't just force closeness, and the best you could do was just leave the door open.
There were people in her own life she didn't fully understand and was trying to figure out – people with expectations that were difficult to reconcile with her own. She had always believed that if people simply minded their manners and didn't overstep, relationships took care of themselves.
It worked better in theory than in practice.
Daphne suddenly broke the silence. "So what would you do?"
Rose blinked. "What?"
"If you were me." She started, "If you were in my place, what would you do?"
Rose thought about it, her thoughts going back to her cousins even as the image of a shock of black flashed in front of her eyes. "I'd apologize, and then… then I'd buy her something sweet."
Daphne's eyebrows rose. "Really? That's your solution?"
"It works surprisingly often."
Daphne laughed. "I can't believe you're serious. You'd bribe her if you were in my place?"
"It's not a bribe." Rose's expression became solemn. "It's a purchase to strategically improve the atmosphere."
Daphne stared at her for a second, then she burst out laughing.
Rose held the stoic expression on her face for a few moments as they walked.
Then she cracked, and a small laugh escaped her lips. It came out bright and real, before she could catch it – and was far different from the breathy little giggles she usually allowed herself.
For a moment she almost looked younger.
The sound echoed softly through the corridor.
Daphne stared at her.
Rose noticed. "What?"
"You laughed," Daphne said wonderingly.
Rose immediately looked offended. "I will have you know, I am capable of laughter."
Daphne held her hands up in a mock surrender. "I know."
"Then why are you still staring?"
"Because I've never heard you laugh like that." Since she'd met Rose over two months ago, she'd never seen the older girl laugh. It was mostly smirks at someone's misfortune or, at rare moments, light, breathy giggles. Never a full laugh.
Rose shook her head, still smiling. "Then perhaps you're fortunate."
"That's not fair."
"It wasn't intended to be."
Daphne laughed again.
Rose found herself laughing with her. For those few moments, there was no pressure on her. No expectations to manage, and no need to carefully choose each word she spoke.
Just two girls walking through a castle and laughing at something incredibly stupid.
Rose almost wished moments like this lasted longer. Then the thought came, and she pushed it aside. "Anyway," she said, recovering her composure, "buy her something sweet."
Daphne grinned. "I will."
"And don't forget to actually apologize."
"I will."
"And actually listen to her."
"I know."
Rose nodded. "Good."
They walked on, though Daphne seemed considerably less troubled now.
Rose was glad.
She liked seeing the younger girl smile.
Maybe it was why she had agreed to mentor her in the first place. There was something satisfying about helping someone find their footing – and it was easier when the person actually wanted the help.
Rose's thoughts wandered again. She wondered, briefly, whether everyone was like that. Whether some people simply needed someone to help them learn the things they'd never been taught.
The thought made something in her chest tighten, and so she didn't dwell on it.
She had been taught from childhood that being a Potter represented something. There were standards to uphold, expectations to meet, and a certain way she was expected to carry herself.
There was nothing wrong with that. She had never questioned it.
Still…
Maybe not everyone had grown up with the same lessons.
The thought lingered for a moment before she let it go. Some standards existed for a reason.
Daphne suddenly spoke again, "Hey, Rose." When the older girl turned, the blonde continued. "Thanks."
Rose looked at her. "For what?"
"For listening."
A small smile touched Rose's face. "You're welcome."
Daphne smiled back. Then, after a moment, she hurried off down the corridor. "I'll find Astoria!"
Rose watched her go for a moment before shouting at her. "Good luck!"
Daphne waved without turning around.
Rose shook her head. She remained there for a moment longer, watching the corridor where Daphne had disappeared. Then she turned and continued on her way.
Her expression settled back into its usual composed calm.
But the faint warmth remained.
OO OO OO
Long after Rose and Daphne were gone, the Door of the Broom closet swung open.
Harry stayed where he was. His eyes were a dull green as he stared down the quiet stretch of stone where Rose and Daphne had disappeared.
He'd heard her laugh; that one realization kept echoing in his head.
Really laugh.
For several seconds, Harry couldn't quite process it.
It was an actual laugh – nothing like the polite smiles and the curt, taciturn nods she'd given him at Platform 9¾, or the faint twitch of her lips whenever something amused her. This had been different, a bright and free laugh, a carefree happy one without any of that ironclad solemnity she maintained around him.
He stepped out of the closet and turned his gaze down the corridor again, almost expecting Rose and Daphne to come back, but there was no one there.
His mind replayed the sound – his sister's laugh hitting his heart in places he didn't even know existed. Then his thoughts veered towards the conversation.
Rose had listened to Daphne, that was the first thing that stood out to him.
She had actually listened to her patiently and not just blown the younger girl off. She had understood why Daphne's sister had been hurt, and unlike whenever Harry brought up Ron and Hermione and their little spat with her, she had actually tried her best to help.
She told Daphne that her sister had a good reason, she'd told her that it didn't matter – that intent didn't erase how someone felt.
Harry's stomach twisted, because that sounded strangely familiar.
For the past two months, he'd been trying to figure out why his sister kept him at arm's length. He'd told himself that she needed time, that she had grown up somewhere else. That she just wasn't used to having a brother, and it was difficult for her.
And maybe all of that was true.
But Harry had just seen something he hadn't considered before.
Rose wasn't simply incapable of being warm. She could be - after all, she was warm with Greengrass.
Harry lowered his eyes as he thought back to every conversation they'd had since September. Every careful answer she'd given him and every polite smile that suddenly felt jilted and strained in his memories. Every time he'd tried to talk to her and felt like he'd somehow wandered into a formal meeting instead of speaking to his own sister.
He had spent two months waiting for things to get better, for them to grow closer. For Rose to realize that she didn't need to be so tense and alert around Harry.
But maybe he'd been waiting for something that wasn't coming.
His hand slowly moved beneath the hospital gown and found the silver pendant resting against his chest.
His grandmother's necklace that she'd gifted to him.
Harry pulled it free and stared at it. It was a beautiful thing, a teardrop-shaped pendant with a large sapphire between the twisting silver arms. Harry had worn it every day since he got it.
She had given this to him on the day they'd first met. He still remembered how strange it had felt to have someone from his family give him something that actually belonged to their family.
He'd treasured it ever since.
His thumb brushed over the sapphire before the necklace slipped from his hands, and hung in the air, with only the end of the chain being in Harry's grasp. The words escaped Harry's lips, unbidden. "Rose Potter loves me."
The question escaped before he could stop it.
Harry frowned at himself, mentally scolding himself for even considering divining that question.
Of course she loved him, she was his sister.
Didn't she?
But…
He swallowed.
But maybe not in the way he wanted. Maybe she cared about him and she was just still adjusting to Hogwarts.
But why had hearing her laugh with Greengrass hurt so much?
Why did it feel like he'd just discovered something he had desperately wanted but had never been allowed to have?
His grip tightened around the chain as it swung under an unseen force.
Harry needed to know.
The pendant swung around, rotating in a way that made the answer evident.
Harry's eyes were entirely blank as he stared at the pendant.
No.
The answer was a No.
"No…"
He tried again, hoping against all hope that he had done it wrong. Maybe he hadn't focused properly, or maybe he handnt held the pendant properly for this form of divination, or maybe it could be a thousand little things.
No.
He stilled – the answer remained the same.
Something inside Harry sank as he turned his vacant gaze down the corridor to see it empty, just like before - Rose was gone.
Harry looked down at the pendant again.
For a long moment, he simply stood there as his fingers tightened around the chain of his pendant.
"You gave me this," he whispered, his voice trembling as he spoke to the cold air of Hogwarts, with no one but a few portraits there to listen. "You gave me something that belonged to our family." His round glasses fogged up as his eyes began to sting, the tears welling up in his green eyes. "And you don't even…"
He couldn't finish, feeling too much at the same time. – Hurt, anger, shame, disappointment.
Most of all, it was the hurt and the sharp sting of disappointment that got to him. It wasn't because Rose had done something cruel. It was because Harry was starting to realise that the sister he had already come to love and look up to might never feel the same way about him
His hand trembled, and in a moment of bitter frustration, Harry swung his arm with all he had.
The chain slipped out of his fingers as the pendant went flying through the air before hitting the wall on the other side of the corridor. A loud cracking sound echoed through the entire corridor as the silver and blue pendant shattered into countless fragments of silver that hung in the air for a few moments before falling to the ground.
Harry stared.
For one horrible second, he couldn't move.
Then all the anger vanished.
"Oh."
He dropped to his knees. "No, no, no…" His hands immediately reached for the scattered pieces. "Please…" He frantically began gathering the shards together, his fingers trembling as he searched across the cold stone. "Please don't be broken." He said to the pendant, his voice wet with tears and regret.
The tears dripped down from his ears and wet the stone floor as he gathered the broken pieces of his… his…his – his breath hitched in his throat, it hurt to event think about it – his grandmother's necklace.
He gathered everything in his hands and looked at it with a devastated expression on his face. The delicate chain had snapped apart into a tangled scatter of tiny silver links, the silver arms twisted and warped and broken into countless fragments, and the Sapphire had shattered and had been reduced to glittering shards.
The necklace had been destroyed beyond repair, and… and was… and was utterly gone.
A fresh wave of tears dripped down his face as that thought completed in his head.
*Shiver*
Harry's body violently shuddered as a powerful cold shiver suddenly ran down his spine.
A sensation of utter doom overcame his grief and forced him to look upwards.
There, right next to the part of the wall where he'd so foolishly thrown his grandmother's necklace at – there was something there.
It was a spherical ball of a red so deep it almost looked like blood, but with a tint of blue in it. It was the size of a thumb and was just floating there in the air in defiance of all laws of physics. "What…?"
What is that?
Harry slowly stood up, wiping his face clean of the tears with the sleeve of his hospital gown.
Did it come out of the necklace?
Harry reached out to grab the… whatever it was floating in the air when –
"Dobby wouldn't do that, Harry Potter, sir!"
Harry jumped in surprise before turning around in a hurry. "Merlin's beard! What…" Harry gasped as his green eyes met the comically wide ones of Dobby the house-elf. Dobby was still dressed in the ragged pillowcase that Harry had started associating with house-elves by now.
"Dobby! Where did you come from?" Harry yelped.
Dobby's ears twitched nervously as he stared at the floating sphere. "Dobby is here because Dobby heard sir talking. Dobby does not think sir should touch that."
Harry frowned and looked back at the strange object. "Why?"
"Dobby does not know what it is."
Harry blinked. "You don't?"
Dobby shook his head vigorously. "No, Harry Potter, sir. Dobby doesn't. But Dobby knows it is not normal."
He ran a hand through his messy locks of hair. "Yeah, I figured that much out." He muttered to himself.
He looked back at the sphere. It was just floating there next to the wall, perfectly motionless. It was like a drop of blood the size of his thumb, with its dark red surface seeming almost liquid despite being a floating ball. The faint blue shifted beneath its surface in a mesmerizing way.
Harry lifted his hand again and reached out to touch it, but before he could, Dobby grabbed his wrist.
"No, no, no! Harry Potter must not touch it, sir!"
Harry stared at the tiny house-elf in surprise. "Dobby?"
"Bad magic," Dobby whispered. His enormous eyes remained fixed on the sphere. "Dobby does not know what kind of bad magic. But Dobby knows Harry Potter must not touch things that come from magic like that."
Harry looked down at where the pillow-case clad elf had his wrist in a vicegrip before turning towards the Elf in question. "You can let me go now, Dobby. I promise I won't touch it."
Dobby released a relieved sigh but once again took a nervous gulp at Harry's next words.
"But I need to know what it is." It came out of his grandmother's necklace, which was the main reason he absolutely needed to know what it was. Was it some secret of hers inside the necklace, or something she had put there for Rose to discover, only for him to find out – or was it something that should never have been allowed to escape the necklace, which Harry had foolishly destroyed?
His brows furrowed behind his glasses as his thoughts raced with all sorts of ideas and theories.
"Then sir must find someone who does know!" Dobby suddenly piped in, cutting off Harry's train of thought.
He turned to look at his little elf friend. "Who are you talking about? Professor Dumbledore?"
"No no no," Dobby violently shook his head, sending his ears flapping about as he talked. "Dobby is talking about the Telling Table."
"The What?"
"The Telling Table, Harry Potter Sir!" Dobby's eyes went comically wide as he gasped. Like it was something Harry was supposed to know about but didn't. "It is in the Come and Go Room! House-elves are forbidden to touch it, sir!"
Harry rubbed his temples, feeling the sharp spike of pain in his head as he tried to figure out what Dobby was saying. "What's this Telling Table, Dobby?"
"It is a table that tells sir what things are, what they do, and sometimes what sir should not do with them."
Harry looked at the sphere again. He had to admit, a table like that sounded very useful. He glanced down at the shattered remains of the necklace clutched in his hand, with the metal and the gem shards digging into his palm, almost drawing blood. The thought he'd broken his grandmother's heirloom made his stomach twist, but he pushed the matter down – for some reason, this strange sphere was all that he could focus on.
"And where is this table? In this Come and Go room?"
"Yes, Harry Potter, sir! Yes!" Dobby nodded so fast his ears flapped. "Dobby can take Harry Potter sir to the Telling Table now, if Harry Potter sir is willing."
"Can this table tell me what this is?" Harry asked, waving towards the floating sphere.
Dobby hesitated. "Dobby thinks so."
Harry nodded slowly, as if contemplating a life-defining philosophy. Then his eyes narrowed. "You said you can take me to the table, to this come-and-go room of yours."
Dobby's ears perked up as his eyes sparkled with happiness "Dobby can take Harry Potter sir there! Dobby can!"
Harry looked once more at the crimson-blue sphere floating beside the wall. "Then take me there."
Dobby's face lit up. "Dobby will take Harry Potter sir to the Come-and-Go Room!"
OO OO OO
"So, is this it?"
Harry asked Dobby. They were currently standing on the seventh floor, and facing the wall opposite of a truly bizarre picture – of a man named Barnabus, aptly nicknamed the Barmy, trying to teach Trolls of all things how to dance ballet of all things.
He stared at the blank wall for another moment, trying to find any hidden switch or a doorknob or anything that might open the way into this 'Come and Go room', but he couldn't see anything. "So… how do we get in? Is there a phrase I need to say or what?"
But he couldn't care too much about it.
In fact, he was more concerned about the thumb-sized drop of blood floating a few inches over his left palm. While trying to figure out how to move it around, he'd quickly found out that he could influence it just with his thoughts if he had his hand near it.
He was quite worried about why he could influence it so.
"No, no, no," Dobby shook his head. "Nothing like that. Dobby will show Harry Potter sir how to open the Come and Go Room."
The tiny elf stepped forward closer to the wall before changing directions and walking to the left. He moved a few paces before turning around and walked the same length to the right.
Dobby then did that two more times.
What was he doing? Just as Harry opened his mouth to ask that question, the wall shuddered and large wooden double doors appeared in the previously blank wall.
"This is the Come and go room," Dobby announced. "Harry Potter sir must walk like Dobby did and must think of what the room must look like. The come and go room can become anything Harry Potter sir wants."
"Okay, that's impressive," Harry muttered as he pushed the doors open and stepped inside.
He'd made it a little deeper into the room when he noticed that Dobby wasn't following him. Harry turned around and saw Dobby standing right outside the doors of the Come and Go Room. "What are you doing?" Harry asked. "Come on in," he waved Dobby over.
"Dobby cannot, Harry Potter sir," Dobby said. "Hogwarts elves must not enter the Room of the Telling Table. It is forbidden. Harry Potter sir must go on now — Dobby is leaving." With that said, Dobby disappeared in a pop.
Confused and with a mind full of all sorts of questions, Harry continued into the Come and Go Room.
He walked past the thick stone columns before stopping to take in the massive room.
It was enormous.
It stretched far wider than he had expected, with a high ceiling disappearing into the shadows above and a vast patterned floor spreading out before him.
His eyes immediately fell on the lone desk sitting in the center of this massive room.
This would be the Telling Table, Harry realized as he approached and examined it. It was made of a dark wood and its surface was carved with elegant pointed arches. Old books were piled across it alongside strange metal instruments, several objects Harry couldn't identify, and a small lamp that gave off a steady golden glow.
Two enormous chandeliers hung from the ceiling, casting warm light across the room and illuminating several massive, twisted trees growing straight from the floor. Their thick branches stretched upward until they disappeared toward a second-floor balcony that wrapped around the room.
At the far end, nestled between the enormous trunks, stood a glass greenhouse.
Warm yellow light spilled from within it, making the distant structure almost inviting despite the strange collection of objects surrounding it.
Harry frowned.
This certainly wasn't what he had expected when Dobby had told him about the Telling Table.
Then again, considering that this was supposedly a room that could become anything he imagined, perhaps that was the point.
His gaze slowly returned to the dark wooden desk, and suddenly his hand throbbed with pain – and he was suddenly reminded of the fact that he had sharp metal and jewel fragments clutched tightly within the palm of his now hurting right hand.
Harry grimaced before placing the remnants of his grandmother's necklace onto the desk. Before he could do anything, one of the books from the stack jumped upwards and landed onto the lectern in the center of the desk. The Book flipped open to a blank page as a quill danced through the air, dipped itself into an inkwell and started to write onto the blank page.
[Name: Tears of Euphemia (Destroyed]
[Type: Sealed Artifact]
[Ability: The Tears of Euphemia allow improper Divination attempts to succeed. Properly attempted Divinations provide a greater result.]
[Downsides: The more a person uses the ability of this sealed artifact, the more they become similar to the master of its pathway.]
Harry read it as it was written, and his breath hitched as he read the name. 'Tears of Euphemia', that was the name of his grandmother, as Harry had managed to get out of Rose.
So, it really did belong to her. Not that Harry doubted his sister, but getting a confirmation in this manner was its own heady feeling.
He kept reading and was left with several questions as the quill stopped and slipped back into its stand.
What was a sealed artifact? It wasn't something Harry had ever heard of before. Was it a type of enchanted object, or maybe something dangerous – which was why it was 'Sealed'? To make it safer, maybe?
He read ahead into the Abilities section, and an offended frown crossed his face. How dare this desk imply that all his divination was due to the necklace and not his own skill? He was currently the best at the subject in his own class, and it had been a point of pride for him.
Regardless, he skipped over the Downsides section, not that he understood much anyway - what even was a pathway, and what did it mean to become like its master? – before grabbing the remnants of his grandmother's… the Tears of Euphemia and held them in his hand, ignoring the way the sharpened edges of the fragments drew blood.
He brought his other hand forward and placed the blue-tinted drop of blood onto the desk. Like all the times before, it just floated a few inches above the wooden surface of the desk, instead of splashing below.
Still, it seemed that it was close enough for the desk to scan it, as the quill jumped up into the air and the book opened again.
[Name: -]
[Type: Beyonder Characteristic]
[Nature: Sequence 8: Clown of the Fool Pathway]
Harry's brows furrowed as that appeared on the paper. Clown of the Fool pathway? Was this one of Fred and George's jokes? Because it sounded like something they would do. And what even was a Pathway and Sequence 8?
Was it a cooldown?
None of it meant anything to him.
Whatever a Sequence was, it clearly wasn't something Hogwarts taught.
Harry rolled his eyes. "This was a waste of time; I should just take it to Professor Dumbledore." He muttered to himself as he reached out and grabbed the Drop of Blood. His fingers wrapped around the Beyonder Characteristic as he, for some reason, forgot about not wanting to touch it before.
Just in time as the quill scribbled out something else onto the paper.
[Warning: This beyonder Characteristic must not be touched by bare skin or consumed without being turned into a Potion.]
"What…?" Harry blinked as the drop of blood disappeared, seeping into his palm.
For a moment, nothing happened.
This face flushed red.
It ignited with a violent and unnatural heat that crawled down his neck and spread till the rest of his body was the same scarlet as his face. Harry let out a pained gasp as a layer of sweat erupted on his skin, making the thin Hospital gown instantly plaster to his violently shivering frame, soaking through in seconds. Under the flickering lights, his wet skin took on a grotesque and glossy sheen, sweltering and dangerously inflamed, making him look like a steamed lobster.
His mind snapped under some unseen strain, and felt like it was being stretched and contracted violently. It was sickening, and felt like it was being dragged through the eye of a microscopic needle. Harry could feel it fusing with the drop of blood before attacking and each and every part of his body.
It was horrifying and maddening – and even without any diagnostic spells or medical equipment, Harry could practically see the way his body was being infected, with how each and every individual cell of his body was being mutated by the Beyonder Characteristic.
A raw, ragged gasp tore from his throat as a blinding spike of pain drove itself behind his eyes. He collapsed forward, hands clawing frantically at his own skull, desperately trying to crush the pressure building within. But the pain wasn't just physical; it was the harrowing raving that echoed in his head.
Hornacis...Flegrea...
Hornacis... Flegrea...
Hornacis... Flegrea...
The words filled his head, and Harry felt his body lurch and change underneath it.
Harry's spine bowed backward with a brutal, sickening lurch as the true metamorphosis took hold. The nightmare started at his face, and to his absolute horror, his nerve endings remained brutally alive, making him feel each and every second of it.
The wet, flushed skin of his cheeks and jaw began to stiffen and calcify, the flesh dying and hardening as it transformed into wood as he felt his pores harden into grain.
His magic also went out of control and started erupting out of his body and striking everything in range – destroying large swathes of the room around him. Glass shattered, medical instruments were flattened, and the very walls groaned and buckled as large parts of the Come and Go room was completely pulverized by the sheer, unbridled destructive force pouring out of him.
Harry didn't know how long he had been in this condition; a minute warmth suddenly suffused his body as his mind started reflecting his own figure – like he was listening to himself singing through his own ear. He felt himself regaining control as the transformation he had gone through started reversing and his mind started becoming clearer by the minute.
Eventually, it was just Harry standing there in the wreckage of the Come and Go Room, his skin flushed red and him panting with exhaustion.
OO OO OO
The sounds of a quill writing on a piece of paper filled the air.
Curiously, this quill seemed to be able to write without needing any ink.
The writer recited their words as they wrote. "…And so, through a quirk of fate and the remnant will of his grandmother, Euphemia Potter nee Moon, young Harry Potter was able to stabilize his state, and against all conventions, was able to advance to Sequence 8 of the Seer Pathway, the Clown. This is within expectations, after all…
Everything is proceeding normally."