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The Dark and Winding Path
By SSHENRY

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Category: Post-HBP
Characters:Harry/Ginny
Genres: Drama
Warnings: Dark Fiction
Rating: PG-13
Reviews: 338
Summary: *** The author has been reminded via the e-mail address on file that this story is listed as incomplete and has not been updated in over 2 years ***

"He did not feel the way he had so often felt before, excited, curious, burning to get to the bottom of a mystery; he simply knew that the task of discovering the truth about the real Horcrux had to be completed before he could move a little farther along the dark and winding path stretching ahead of him, the path that he and Dumbledore had set out upon together, and which he now knew he would have to journey alone." ~HBP NOTE: THIS IS NOT AN EXTENTION OF THE S.S.POTTER SERIES, BUT IS AN ENTIRELY NEW STORY. Enjoy!
Hitcount: Story Total: 130180; Chapter Total: 3965







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We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.
~T. S. Eliot



 


 


CHAP TER SIXTEEN: THE SECOND BASTION; Requiem for Rowena



 


 


There was nothing obviously wrong with the torch-lit corridor. It was, as far as Harry could tell, just a corridor.



"A corridor without doors," murmured Ginny as they passed what had to be the fiftieth hissing and crackling torch.



"At least it’s going up," Harry pointed out. He refused to admit that the doorless, featureless corridor was unnerving him as well, but the incline of the corridor was unmistakable, as was the continual freshening of the air. Wherever this tunnel led, at the end it opened on the out-of-doors. The knowledge that they would soon reach open air resonated in Harry’s blood like a tune picked out on quivering harp strings.



"Shh, did you hear that?" Ginny placed a restraining hand on his arm.



"Hear what?"



"Quiet, listen!"



But there was nothing; nothing but the sigh of air past the stones and the hiss and crackle of the torches. And then, so faint at first that Harry thought it must be a figment of his imagination, came the faint, tinkling sounds of a harp.



"Whose playing it do you think?"



"No idea."



It grew louder as they walked; sure proof that they were reaching the end of the tunnel, or at least what they were searching for. The tune was sad and sweet; as if someone had set to music all the wistfulness of the ages and the voice! Someone was singing with the harp. At first the words were indistinguishable, but gradually they became clearer.



I sing of love forgotten,


I sing of times grown dim,


I sing of times of peril


And of hope, however thin.



If tomorrow all I cared for


Was taken from my grasp


I would still have hope inside my heart


And to it I’d hold fast.



And so it is I lift my voice


A blessing on the ones who hear


May you achieve your heart’s desire


And keep your hope forever near



 


Another five minutes of steady walking brought them to a set of smooth stone steps which led not to another corridor or even to a room, but which opened out onto a terrace overlooking the lake; a terrace bathed in the richly gold sunlight of a late summer’s afternoon.



Harry craned his neck, looking behind him for the reassuring turrets and roofline of the Hogwarts castle. Instead he found himself looking at a simple round structure — a tower of sorts, though only half as high as the Astronomy tower, it was nearly five times as wide; a very rudimentary castle tower with a number of smaller, simpler structures attached its base. Dwellings? Storage sheds? Stables? There was really no way to tell what they were used for.



"All right," said Ginny quietly, as she stepped out onto the sun-warmed paving stones behind Harry and caught a glimpse of their surroundings. "Now I’m seriously freaked out. That’s the lake, and those mountains, I recognize them, but — where’s the school?"



"Dunno," said Harry, repressing a shiver. "I’d definitely have to say that we’re not in Kansas any more."



"Kansas?" said Ginny blankly.



"I just meant that I don’t think that this is Hogwarts."



"Of course it is."



Both Harry and Ginny jumped, withdrawing their wands, turning on the spot to find a young woman standing just behind them. She was dressed in robes of a rich, sapphire blue with silver embroidery at the collar, cuffs and hem. Her hair, which she wore in a long plait down her back, was so darkly brown that it could very well pass for black, but her eyes were of the same shade as her robes and they sparkled with interest and intelligence.



"There is, of course, no need to be alarmed," she added, taking in their startled expressions and drawn wands. "I have been waiting for you for a very long time indeed."



"Waiting?" said Harry blankly.



"For us?" added Ginny.



"Well, for you at least," said the woman, nodding at Harry. "He said that when the time was right you would come to collect what was rightfully yours. He did not mention your lovely traveling companion, but seeing as that you appear to have come together and that you," she inclined her head to Harry, "do not appear to be under any coercion by the young lady, I will take it to mean that she has been informed as to what it is you are searching for and perhaps that she is even helping you in your quest."



"Er . . ." Harry stared at the woman, his brain a complete blank.



"Who said this?" said Ginny, her eyes narrowing slightly.



"The one who binds us to this place."



"Us?" said Ginny, who was now frowning slightly. "You mean there’s more than one of you?"



"More than one of me?" The woman threw back her head, laughing delightedly. "Heavens no, there is only one of me. Rowena," she said, extending her hand to Ginny. "Rowena Ravenclaw."



Ginny took the woman’s hand, her eyes met Harry’s and one eyebrow arched questioningly. Harry didn’t need to hear her thought to know what she was thinking. How could she be Rowena Ravenclaw, the founder of Ravenclaw House if she was here, now? She was a descendent maybe, but not the real Rowena Ravenclaw. The real Rowena Ravenclaw had died ages ago.



"The Rowena Ravenclaw?" said Ginny, sounding stunned and once again seeming to intuit Harry’s thought. "One of the four original founders of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry?"



The woman inclined her head with a gracious smile.



"That’s impossible," blurted Harry before he could think about it. "You can’t be Rowena Ravenclaw. Rowena Ravenclaw died hundreds of years ago."



"Of course I did," said the woman, shrugging.



"Are you a ghost then?" wondered Ginny.



"More of a - memory," said the woman matter-of-factly.



Harry felt a chill run down his spine. He’d had more than one run-in with so-called ‘memories.’ And while the memories in Dumbledore’s Pensieve had been relatively benign, the ‘memory’ stored in Tom Riddle’s diary had taken on a malicious life of its own. Ginny’s mind must have been running in the same direction, because Harry felt her edge closer, her trembling hand slipping into his.



"If you’re a memory," said Harry carefully, "then where are you . . .er . . .stored?"



"Stored? Well, in here of course," said the woman, gesturing to an intricately carved wooden harp that leaned against the wall of the circular structure behind them.



The harp.



Harry felt his stomach clench tightly and it took him a moment to realize that the woman was speaking again.



"Although, since the Other has used it for his purposes, I find it much more agreeable to remain in the form that you see me. Shut up with that part of the Other that now inhabits my charge is, well, unpleasant."



"This Other," said Ginny slowly. "Would that be the same as the He you were speaking of? The one who binds you to this place?"



"Oh no, the Other came first. It is he who has manipulated the power of my charge for his own twisted purposes." she said sadly, gesturing to the harp. "He would keep its powers for himself instead of sharing them with all who have a need. No, the He of whom I spoke was set the task of guarding us. I believe that the Other was under the impression that he would be able to access what he had stored in my charge at any time, should he so need it, but unknown to the Other, He sent us here," she made an all-encompassing gesture.



"Where exactly is here?" asked Harry.



"You would be better to ask when is here," said the woman with an amused smile. "What you see here is a shadow of an ancient time; a time well before my own recollection of this land. He, the guardian, thought it prudent to separate my self and my charge from the time in which we originally came to be so that the Other would not be able to trace us so readily. It is said, and not without good cause, that he is bound in a most intimate way to the objects of his choice."



"You weren’t hidden so very well," said Ginny with a laugh. "We found you easy enough."



"Only because you were supposed to find me," said the woman coolly. "If you had not been the right person — the heir of Gryffindor," she said, nodding at Harry, "you would have found yourself stepping not into the portal which led you to me, but into another place where, while no harm would come to you, you would also have nary a hope of obtaining that which you seek."



"All right," said Harry, rubbing at his forehead in a desperate attempt to understand what the hell this woman was talking about. "We were supposed to find you. I was the right person, the heir of Gryffindor, whatever that means. Does that mean — now that we’ve found you and your charge, your harp - that we can just take the harp and leave?"



"He said that the one who would make his way to this place would know the power of my charge and the dangers inherent to its having been handled by the Other and that I was to allow him to remove it from it’s hiding place, but that I was to warn him that once removed from this time, my charge would once more be accessible by the Other, who would most likely want to regain it for his own evil purposes. Also, that I was to remind he who came to collect my charge, that its power, while great on its own, is nothing next to that wielded by all four of the objects on which we founded the Halls of Hogwarts, especially when united by the hand of He Who Will Heal Our Land."



Harry stared at the woman, nonplussed. Heir of Gryffindor? He Who Will Heal Our Land? Was that — were they supposed to be him?



"Did — did He give you any instructions as to how we were to handle your charge so as not to set off the evil properties that have been stored in it by the Other?" Harry wondered. "Or are we just supposed to take our chances?"



"Wisdom is a powerful tool," said the woman with a gentle smile. "And it is within my power — and my nature - to keep the Other’s properties in check, so long as my charge remains within the boundaries of the Hogwarts grounds."



"The locket was within the grounds," said Ginny warningly to Harry, "there was nothing keeping that in check, let me tell you!"



"You found Salazar’s locket?" said the woman delightedly. "Dearest Salazar! He invested the locket with his power, but he would not tie himself to it by blood or death. He wouldn’t have done something so selfless as leave a part of himself to guard the object of which he was keeper." She sighed deeply, and then smiled mischievously at Harry and Ginny. "He did not consider it to be necessary or prudent," said the woman tactfully.



"You mean it wasn’t in his own best interest," said Harry with a snort as he remembered something Slughorn had said, once upon a time, a Slytherin always knows when to save his own skin. "I can believe it," he said finally. All the Slytherins he had known had been selfish at heart, out for whatever they could get, and not shy of using any means to achieve their desires. Look at Draco, so desperate to prove himself to the Dark Lord that he had agreed to attempt to assassinate the most powerful wizard of the age. But in the end it hadn’t been Draco who had managed to kill Dumbledore, it had been Snape.



Another Slytherin. A Slytherin that Dumbledore had trusted with his life; a trust that had been repaid by treachery. An unformed thought was hovering at the edges of Harry’s mind, and he didn’t like what it was suggesting.



The Other had used the harp, an object deeply magical in its own respect, for what this woman had called ‘evil intentions’. She had seemed thoroughly disgusted by what she had called the Other’s ‘twisted purposes’. Harry could only assume that the Other was none other than Voldemort himself; a Voldemort who had most likely used the harp to create another one of his foul Horcruxes.



If this were the case, then it would explain why Voldemort had been so very anxious to stay at Hogwarts and teach — and why he had felt compelled to apply again for a teaching position so many years later at a time when he most likely not only had the locket, but the cup too in his possession.



But, assuming he had turned the harp into a Horcrux before he left Hogwarts in his seventh year, he had not hidden it as he had the hidden and guarded the locket. Perhaps he had thought that the very power of the object itself, or this spirit guardian who seemed tied in some complex way to her ‘charge’ would keep the Horcrux out of harm’s way. Or perhaps he had thought that the very nature of its being in Hogwarts would deter the casual seeker.



More likely Voldemort had probably thought that he would have no trouble convincing Professor Dippet to give him the Defense position. Nor had he given it to a trusted friend to guard. Or had he?



Snape was the guardian. He had to be, the entrance, the portal, had been in his office after all. It made perfect sense. Snape had — at Voldemort’s orders of course — pretended to come over to Dumbledore’s side and thus had ensured himself a position at Hogwarts where he would have been in a perfect position to search out and put his own protections around his master’s fragment of soul.



But hadn’t Snape come to Hogwarts after Voldemort had lost his power? Why would he have come after — unless of course he had been following Voldemort’s last instructions? That would definitely explain why Snape had never clued Dumbledore in to the fact that there was a Horcrux hidden at Hogwarts. If Dumbledore had known that there was a Horcrux hidden in the castle he would have turned the place upside down to find it, to destroy it. But what it didn’t explain was why if Snape really had been working for the Dark Lord, why he had hidden the harp in such a way that even Voldemort himself would not have been able to find it; why he would have hidden it in such a way that only the heir of Gryffindor — the antithesis of Slytherin — would have been able to find and remove it?



"I see that you have many questions young master," said the woman gently. "And I wish that I could help you to decipher them. Unfortunately, I can only give you the information that is directly related to the object to which I am tied." She shrugged delicately. "And yes, you may remove the harp from this place, but unless you wish to activate the evil that has tied itself to it, I strongly suggest you keeping it within the bounds of the castle grounds."



"If I do take it from here, what will happen to you?" asked Harry, picking up the harp and wondering at the weight of it and the intricacy of its carvings.



"I shall of course remain with my charge," said the woman quietly. "Though once you pass through the portal I will be indistinguishable from the harp itself."



"But I thought you said that it was uncomfortable to remain locked up with the part of the Other that is stored here," said Harry, gesturing to the harp.



"It is for the best," said the woman gently, placing a slim, long-fingered hand on Harry’s shoulder. "Do not fear for my discomfort, young master. Do what is right and the rest will follow."



* * *



In seemingly no time they were back in the stone chamber. No sooner had they entered then there was once more a door in place of the archway they had just passed through. By all appearances it was the door they had originally passed through to get into the stone chamber in the first place.



"That is just too weird," said Ginny, shaking her head.



"Weird, but convenient," Harry amended.



"Here I will bid you farewell young master," said Rowena as Harry and Ginny made to approach the door. "Remember though, that I will only be a thought away." With a smile she faded into a shimmering mist which briefly encased the harp in Harry’s hands before disappearing altogether.



"I wonder what all that was, about me being the heir of Gryffindor," wondered Harry, staring at the harp curiously.



"I bet Hermione will know," said Ginny with a shrug. "And speaking of Hermione, I wonder if she and Ron are still out there."



"They probably gave up on us hours ago," said Harry realistically. "I mean, they were supposed to be back by curfew in order to perform their Prefect duties, and I’m sure it’s well beyond curfews. Who knows, we could have been gone days, not just hours."



"But they wouldn’t have been able to get back through the Portal," said Ginny thoughtfully. "Didn’t Rowena say that only you would be able to pass through it?"



"Yeah, but they came through on their own earlier," Harry pointed out.



"No, they came in after you did," Ginny reminded him. "Maybe the portal is sensitive to your thoughts or something. It could know that Ron and Hermione were with you — that they are doing what’s right. Anyway, she only said that they wouldn’t be able to come in, not that they wouldn’t be able to leave."



"Well then, I guess there’s only one way to find out," said Harry, grinning, and pulled her through the door after him.



 


* * *



"Bloody hell!" yelped Ron, leaping backwards onto the bottom step beside Hermione as the sinuous shadows moved across the floor in undulating ripples. "What the fuck is that?"



"It came out of the door when Harry opened it," said Hermione, clutching at Ron’s arm as if afraid that the darkness would reach up and wrap itself around her, dragging her down into some sort of bottomless pit of liquid terror. She retreated several more steps up the staircase, dragging Ron with her as the malicious darkness lapped relentlessly against the stone.



"Where did they go?" wondered Ron, sounding scared.



"Harry?" called Hermione, then louder, "Harry?"



"Are they in that stuff?" said Ron, his face now pale with shock.



Before Hermione could register what he was doing, he had kicked off his shoes and was pulling his shirt off over his head.



"No!" screamed Hermione, grabbing his arm and digging in her heels. "We don’t know what this is!"



"Doesn’t bloody well matter now, does it?" snapped Ron, prising her fingers off of his arm and turning back to the relentlessly pounding surf of darkness. "I can’t just let them drown now, can I?"



Hermione screamed as a hand, Ginny’s hand, appeared above the surface of the roiling darkness. There was a muffled thud as if somewhere very far away a door had been closed. A moment later the darkness was draining away like water down a drain and there stood Harry and Ginny, looking rather tired and windblown, but none the worse for wear.



"Harry!" cried Hermione, flinging herself into his arms. Ron in the meantime had pulled Ginny into a bone-crushing hug.



"Damn, Gin, I thought I’d lost you!" he said gruffly.



"What — where did your shirt go?" laughed Ginny, pulling away from Ron and getting her first good look at the state of his appearance. "And your shoes!"



"I was — I was coming in to get you," said Ron in a choked voice. "But then the darkness went away almost as fast as it came in."



"We thought you’d drowned or something," said Hermione, pulling away from Harry and wiping at her eyes with her sleeve. "You scared us, disappearing like that! What happened?"



Harry and Ginny exchanged confused looks.



"What do you mean that it left as fast as it came in?" asked Ginny carefully.



"Well, just that," said Ron, shrugging. "One minute it was there, the next it was gone."



"Harry opened the door and all that darkness spilled out," explained Hermione. "It was like some sort of water spilling out all over the floor and filling up the landing. It roiled around for a couple of minutes and then jut - drained away."



"A couple of minutes?" repeated Harry. "But Hermione, we were gone for hours!"



"Five minutes, tops," said Ron as he slipped his feet back into his trainers.



"But we found another chamber," said Ginny, frowning slightly. "A stone one, and then that stone corridor with the torches. It took us nearly an hour to climb it!"



"And a courtyard, where we found this," said Harry, holding up the harp.



"Ravenclaw’s harp!" breathed Hermione, reaching out a finger to touch the satiny smooth wood. She paused, her finger mere inches away. "Is it a Horcrux? Should I put the stasis charm on it?"



"It’s all right," said Ginny, reaching out and taking the harp from Harry’s hand. "It’s protected by some very old magic — it has what appears to be a built-in guardian. As long as it stays on the Hogwarts grounds it is perfectly safe."



"But it is a Horcrux, yes," said Harry, taking the harp back from Ginny and holding it up to the light. He could have sworn that for just a moment he could hear the song that had guided him and Ginny down the stone corridor; the sad, mournful tune that spoke of the sadness of the ages. Sadness and longing and, at it’s heart, a hope, however faint, for the future. "A Horcrux," whispered Harry. "A Horcrux and so much more."



 


* * *




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