A Shadow That Casts a World (Harry Potter/Persona fusion)

[illhousen]

Summary: Hogwarts is full of mysteries and not all of them are benevolent. Something sinister has awoken from a long slumber and now preys on the students. Ginny is the only one in the position to stop it assuming she is willing to descend all the way down black spiral of nightmarish reality.

The fic doesn't require any prior knowledge of Persona games.

The fic has been beta'd by @Baughn. He has my eternal gratitude for his efforts towards the reunification of mankind.​

Prologue: The True Curse of Dada​

Sally-Anne Perks always was curious about the world around her. Once, her class went on a tour to a paleontological museum. Most kids alternated between being amazed at the enormous skeletons of dinosaurs and being bored at old rocks, but Sally-Anne absorbed all of it, listening intently to the tour guide and asking questions. She forgot most of the answers later, leaving her with only a few scattered factoids. One thing, though, she knew from that day to be true: dead things were cool.

Another day she and her friends went to a pool near their homes. While others were busy playing in the water, Sally-Anne followed a small stream trying to find its source. She got lost then and was found only a few hours later, scared and crying, yet on the next day she returned with her mother, holding a map and a compass to complete her task.

It was no wonder then that she spent all her free time in Hogwarts exploring. The castle, after all, was too fascinating for her to ignore its secrets. Every corridor, every room hid something amazing. Ancient suits of armor moved when nobody was looking, portraits visited each other, taking parts of their paintings with them, changing the environment around their hosts (after watching them for several weeks, Sally-Anne noticed that there was a secret war going on between political factions that were dead for centuries), secret passages were hidden behind statues that were perpetually breaking down but never truly destroyed, a few corpses were hidden with magic inside the walls over the centuries, and their ghosts were all too happy to show her the place of their final rest.

There were countless wonders to discover, and so when an entrance appeared to the side of her as she was heading to an Astronomy lesson, she didn't hesitate to step inside. The wall closed behind her, though there was a small hole on her waist level through which faint light from the corridor was coming. The entrance probably opened when Sally-Anne tapped it as she walked by, she decided. There were two other passages responding to the same trigger. Opening it again could be tricky - a lot of passages required different actions to pass depending on which side of the entrance you were. But she could think about it later. Right now, she had a mystery to uncover.

She quietly conjured a dim light at the tip of her wand and looked around. She was standing on the top of a narrow staircase curving in the beginning of a spiral. Judging by her location, the stairs were probably coiled around the towers, hidden inside its walls.

There was nothing interesting around her, so she descended, the light from the corridor soon disappearing behind her back.

She couldn't tell for how long she was going. Time was hard to measure in that dark confined place, with walls touching her shoulders and the light of her wand blinding her more than helping to see. There was nothing to see, anyway. Just stairs before her and stairs behind, disappearing from her view at equal distances. There were no windows, the walls were bare, lacking even imperfections inherent to man-made work or erosion caused by time and elements. Nothing to see, nothing to hear but her own steps, nothing to smell.

Sally-Anne was starting to question the wisdom of her trip when she finally reached the bottom of the stairs. They ended in a sharp spiral stairwell framing a conical room with a single object in it.

She hurried her steps. It was a long descent, and she already dreaded the trip back, but for now she could ignore those concerns. She smiled, anticipating the taste of a new discovery.

It was a painting cast in a heavy frame and floating in the air. Sally-Anne had to remain on the stairs to see it from a good angle, and the painting was too big to see it all at once in the dim light of the spell. Slowly, Sally-Anne moved her wand from right to left, studying the details and trying to piece them together in her mind.

The painting depicted a grass field under a night sky, with people lying on the ground in a half-circle. Each of their hands were spread, almost touching those of the people to the left and right. Vines coiled around the people, covering them in a plethora of delicate white flowers that had yet to blossom. The shading was weird, as if the scene was not illuminated by the stars or the moon but by some unseen source just outside of the frame, so half of the details were shrouded in deep shadows.

There was something vaguely disturbing about the painting, but Sally-Anne couldn't put her finger on what. It was probably nothing, she thought. Headmaster Dumbledore had warned students to stay away from a certain area under fear of certain death, so it stood to reason that every other area she could get into was safe. He would have warned them otherwise.

She stepped closer to read the name of the painting.

"This Is Not the World," she read aloud, then felt a light breeze on her neck.

She turned away from the painting and saw that she was inside of it, even though the painting itself was still there. She remained calm. It was not the first time something like this had happened to her, although the last time she visited a much more lovely place, a feast thrown by one of the headmasters to impress royal ambassadors. She was welcomed there, and Headmistress Holloway (then Deputy Headmistress, but her other portrait had informed her of her promotion) shared a joke about the King and how the number of his kids didn't match the number of nights he spent away from his wife. She didn't get it but laughed anyway.

Somehow she doubted her experience in this painting would be similar. She finally understood what was so disturbing about it. The people didn't move.

"Do you like it?" a woman's voice asked.

Sally-Anne searched for its source, but it originated outside of the frame of the painting, from the area that didn't exist.

"Who are you?" she asked.

"So few people come here now," the voice said. "And so much work yet remains. But it will change. Snow fell in April this year, an accident resulted in death of exactly thirteen people in seven cars, three pairs of conjoined twins were born and separated in Vladivostok and a unicorn died to curse someone with murder from its blood. The signs are promising."

"What are you talking about?" Sally-Anne said glancing back at the painting. She'd arrived there by speaking its name. Perhaps the way back was the same.

"Don't worry about it," the voice said. "You'll understand soon enough. You have the honor of being my first student in centuries. Well, a part of you. Of that, you can be proud."

The light at the tip of Sally-Anne's wand went out.

***​

"Interesting," a boy who could have been called handsome if half of his face wasn't missing said. There was no blood, no gore and no exposed bone. Half of his face simply wasn't there. He had holes all over his body, and the ones near the ground were dripping ink. Where ink touched the plants, they withered and died in moments. He was seated near Sally-Anne, squeezing her hand.

Sally-Anne was lying among other people in the painting, vines slowly growing through her body, coiling around her organs. She felt no pain, just slowly spreading numbness.

"I think I am dying, Tom," she said calmly.

"Of course you are. I am eating you."

"Ah yes."

"A rather underwhelming reaction. No fear, no anger, no pleading?" Tom sounded slightly disappointed.

"It's fine. I've been dying for years now. Disappearing bit by bit into the flowers. I think I was scared at first. Now I am not. And... if my death can save another life, that has to count for something, right?"

"Hmmm... Not an attitude I share or understand."

They were silent for a moment.

"Tom?" Sally-Anne called.

"I am here."

"Can you... fulfill my last request? That's how the phrase goes, right?"

"I make no promises... But I may consider it."

"Can you find my parents? Tell them what happened?"

"I can track them down. But while my knowledge of recent events is limited, I am reasonably sure that nobody knows you disappeared. Considering what happened this year, it would have been a natural topic of conversation, and even if there were some kind of cover-up, it's not really something that can be concealed for long. Not without some powerful magic... In other words, chances are good nobody remembers you, your parents included."

"Oh," she said. "Probably for the best, given... everything."

"Hmmm..."

"Then," she said after a long silence, "can you stop it?"

"Stop what's happening to you? Leaving aside that I am part of the reason why you are dying and not inclined to stop, I doubt I could detach you from those plants without killing you anyway."

"No, I mean all of it. The painting and whatever that woman is doing."

"Why do you care?" he asked curiously. "One way or another, you won't be here to see it."

"I want my death to have meaning. I don't know you, but I know enough to tell you have power. My life sustains you now, helps you recover from whatever happened to you. So, in a way, I am responsible for what you will do after I am gone. And I want my last act to be something good. Then... then, I can be content. I think."

"I can't promise you 'good,'" Tom said. "But I can promise you I will do great things. And yes, I do intend to deal with that woman. I suspect she won't look kindly on my intervention here. It appears that Hogwarts is too small for both of us."

"Thank you," she said and smiled.

The smile froze on her face.

 

[illhousen]

Chapter 1: The Language of Angels​

"Jeez, I just asked to hand me the salt! What's your problem?" Ron asked with a frightened look on his face.

Ginny blinked and looked around to see people staring at her. She was shouting just now, pointing her wand in Ron's face.

"Sorry," she said in a small voice, lowering the wand. "It's just..."

Ron's expression softened. "Nightmares again?" he asked quietly, leaning closer to her so as to prevent others from hearing.

"Yeah. Didn't have them for weeks, but the moment I sleep in Hogwarts..."

"It's probably dementors," Ron said quickly. "A lot of people didn't sleep well with them around. What was the Ministry even thinking bringing them here?"

"Yeah." Ginny gave Ron a faint smile.

For a few minutes they ate in silence. People soon lost interest in them and resumed their conversations.

"Look," Ron said after clearing his throat. "Do you... want to talk about it? I mean, if it helps?"

Ginny sighed. "Nah, I had enough discussions over the summer. I'll be fine. I think I'll take a walk before the classes start, get some fresh air."

"Oh. Right. Then... want to play chess after classes? Or cards? Or just, you know, hang out with me?"

"Yeah, sounds good. I'll see you then," Ginny said standing up.

Ron caught her hand. "Look, when that dementor was near me, I..." he started to say, but then changed his mind and released her. "Yeah, see you later, sis. Stay safe."

"I will," she said, giving him another faint smile.

She turned to leave, but hesitated. "Hey, Ron? Do you know a girl named Sally-Anne Perks?" she asked.

"No, don't think so," he said after a few moments of thinking. "Why do you ask?"

"No reason." Just another nightmare.

She walked away, sighing at the sight of a bunch of second-year Gryffindor girls sitting together and giggling over something. She didn't know half of their names. Tom's combination of charming conversations and derisive yet funny comments about her classmates has kept her from making any other friends in her first year. And now she didn't know how to enter already formed cliques and circles of friends and didn't know if she should, not with her emotions still so raw after everything that happened.

Tom... Even though he was dead and gone, his influence lingered, like a poison in her veins. Even though she knew intellectually it was not the case, she couldn't look at a stranger without wondering if they would betray her trust like he did should they become closer. She felt powerless, defenseless, and she hated it.

Well, she wasn't going to feel that way for long. Ginny squeezed her bag where a book she took first thing after the sorting feast was concealed. She wasn't expecting the library to be open on the day of sorting, but couldn't resist checking just in case. To her surprise, she was greeted by Madame Pince, accompanied as usual by the rattle of chains. Madam Pince, like the other members of Hogwarts staff, looked at Ginny with pity, which she disliked but wasn't above using on occasion. And so it wasn't long before she had what she was looking for.

The book itself wasn't anything special. It contained no spells woven into its pages - Ginny was very careful to check it with Madam Pince - just plain text that was read and put to use by many generations of students, thus ensuring it was safe for her to do so as well. It was merely a collection of spells that could be used in battle, compiled by the author back when the dueling club was a permanent feature of Hogwarts.

The presence of the book in her bag made Ginny feel better. It was something she could use to arm herself. Of course, she knew it wasn't enough. What Tom did could not be easily countered by a stunner or a hex. She would need to study dark magic—without the intent to use it, naturally, she had to remind herself—to comprehend how it operated and what dangers she should look for, a tricky subject to approach and not a prospect she particularly enjoyed contemplating. But it was a start.

Ginny exited the school and took a deep breath. It was nice to be alone for a moment. While she was glad to have the support of her family, to know that no matter what they had her back, by the end of the summer endless conversations about the incident and reassurances that everything would be fine had become nearly suffocating. She needed some time away from all of this to put herself together the way she wanted, rather than the way people saw her now.

The desire to be alone wasn't new to her. She dealt with stress and problems best by isolating herself and thinking stuff through, a habit which, in retrospect, didn't exactly help her in dealing with Tom, but one she continued anyway. She needed it.

And so she walked to a place where nobody but George and Fred (who'd told her about the secret in the first place year ago) could find her. There was a group of trees near the lake growing so close to each other and with branches so tightly intertwined that none could get to the clearing inside. However, if one were to throw a stone at one of the trees and hit the right spot, an entrance would appear for a few moments, allowing Ginny to climb inside.

To find a blonde girl sitting inside with a big hat in her lap from which she dramatically pulled a slip of parchment.

Ginny's hand went to her wand in anger before she caught herself. It's not like her name was etched there or anything. If this girl found the secret of the clearing, she had as much right to be here as Ginny.

The girl carefully put the piece of parchment among others lying before her and looked at Ginny.

"Hello," she said.

"Hi," Ginny said. "My name is Ginny."

"I know. And I am Luna Lovegood."

Ginny winced.

While her true role in the events of the previous year was unknown to the general public, her abduction by the Heir of Slytherin was not. Before, she had dreams about being captured by a villain only for Harry Potter, The Boy Who Lived, to come and rescue her.

Actually living through the story rather soured her to the whole affair and made her draw swords in the hands of captured princes and princesses in her old fairy tales books. Most of them didn't know what to do with them and still waited for their destined loves to come save the day. The exception was a princess called Mally (Ginny suspected a typographical error was involved in her name) who wielded the sword with great glee to first stab the villain and then, on the next page, to kill the royal parents of her supposed love interest and usurp the throne.

So it was no surprise that the reminding of her new-found fame brought her little joy.

"What are you doing?" she asked to distract herself.

"Trying to rediscover the language of angels."

Ginny blinked. "Huh?"

"Once upon a time there was only one language that all sapient beings spoke," Luna said in a lecturing tone. "But then the world broke apart, and the language was lost to mortals. Yet it lingers still in languages we speak today, though less so with each generation as languages change, which is why it's better to use old and dead ones for study. A quirk of pronunciation here, an unusual vowel there. That is how we do our magic: by pronouncing words just right so they resemble the words angels spoke when creating the world and evoke their power. But those are mere fragments of the true language hidden between unrelated sounds. So I break apart words I know contain those fragments and try to find them and combine in new words. My goal here is the complete reconstruction of the language of angels which will lead to the reunification of mankind."

"Huh," Ginny said. "Does it work?"

"Not really. It must be the British accent. It's very far from celestial, you know."

"Wait, how do you explain muggles then? They speak the same languages, but they don't have magic."

"I don't believe in muggles," Luna said in a haughty tone. "They are a superstition."

Ginny didn't know what to say to that. The whole thing was rather surreal and put her somewhat off-balance. Yet it did distract her from her own problems, and while she couldn't bring herself to believe what the girl said, pretending to communicate with angels by saying nonsense words did seem appealing at the moment. Her plans to be alone were disrupted anyway.

"Mind if I join?" Ginny asked after a few moments.

"Sure," Luna said.

No divine words were discovered that day, and Ginny was late to her classes, but she smiled, and her smile was real.

On the next day the reunification of mankind was forgotten in favor of exploding snap. Luna didn't know the rules, to Ginny's surprise. When asked, she explained that nobody ever taught them to her.

"I can play Dead Man's Hand, though," she said.

Ginny promised they would play it some other time.

On the third day of their friendship Luna arrived without shoes.

"Aren't you cold?" Ginny asked. It was a warm autumn, but not that warm.

"I am," Luna said.

"Why don't you wear shoes then?"

"Nargles took them."

"Huh?"

"They take my things sometimes, you know. Usually just place them somewhere it's hard to reach or where they would get dirty, like a tree or a fireplace."

Ginny frowned. "What are nargles?"

"They are tiny creatures that infest humans' heads and make them do their bidding. I mean, nobody would think it's fun to take things that don't belong to them without nargles, right?"

"You should tell the teachers about them," Ginny said, looking Luna in the eye.

Luna smiled sadly. "Nargles have their own language, you know, like angels. 'It's just a prank.' 'Girls will be girls.' 'They need to get witching out of their system.' 'Nobody got hurt.' 'Now apologize and don't do it anymore.' That's what they use to cloud the minds of humans, blind them to what they really see so they would perceive something harmless instead."

Ginny bit her lip. It didn't surprise her that the teachers would be useless. They couldn't stop her from going around killing chickens, and that was when they were really paying attention. But to think they would simply dismiss her... No, that made sense on a second thought. They couldn't be everywhere, couldn't see everything, and compared to what transpired in the castle during the last two years, having to summon a few things now and then to an eccentric girl probably didn't look all that important.

Ginny decided to fall back on the lessons she herself learned.

"Then, you should learn how to defend yourself. I have this book with some cool hexes. I especially like the one that summons bats. Bet they won't expect that."

But Luna just shook her head continuing to smile. "Offensive magic just breeds more nargles. I can scare them away, but more will come and they'll be more vicious."

Ginny stared at her. She felt powerless again, unable to help the first friend she's made in Hogwarts. And if she couldn't solve a problem like that, what worth there was...

"It's fine, really," Luna said, taking out the pieces of parchment from her bag and putting them into the big hat lying before her. "Once I rediscover the language of angels and reunify humanity, there will be no more place for nargles. You'll help me, right?"

Ginny looked at the hat. Two days ago it seemed like a wonderful toy. Now every piece of parchment looked like a curse.

"I... I have to go," she said. "I'll see you later."

She ran without looking back.

On the next day Luna disappeared.

At first Ginny thought she simply didn't come to their usual place, and she couldn't blame her for that. But they had a Herbology class with Ravenclaws that day, and Luna wasn't there, either. She asked the Ravenclaw students where Luna was, but none of them knew.

To be precise, none of them knew who Luna was.

A horrible thought dawned on Ginny. When even teachers failed to remember Luna's name, she headed straight to Professor McGonagall's office and from there to the headmaster's. She didn't want to believe it, but she couldn't afford to deny that her nightmare might be real.

Headmaster Dumbledore welcomed her warmly and offered a cup of tea. She accepted and drank for a minute, amid quiet sounds of various trinkets, the headmaster seemingly content to let her think.

"I had a nightmare a few days ago," she said.

The headmaster nodded, but didn't interrupt.

"About a room hidden at the bottom or perhaps below the bottom of the Astronomy Tower. There was a painting in that room that swallowed a girl, Sally-Anne Perks, who ventured there exploring the castle and killed her over a course of a few years. Nobody could remember her name after she disappeared, nobody remembered her at all. I met a girl, Luna Lovegood. In reality, I mean, not in a dream. She disappeared today or yesterday. Nobody can remember her, either. I think my nightmare can be real."

Headmaster Dumbledore was silent for a few moments, caressing his own cup in his hands.

"Hogwarts contains many mysteries," he said eventually. "Not all of them benevolent. Your concerns may well have roots in reality. You said the room was under the Astronomy Tower?"

"Yes. The entrance is somewhere near the Astronomy class, though. It leads to stairs spiraling inside tower's walls."

Headmaster nodded.

"I shall investigate it. I shall warn you, however, that if you see... Luna again, you should inform me or other teachers and not interact with her yourself. It could be that she is not a victim of the mystery but rather a phantom created by it to lure you into a trap."

Ginny bristled and wanted to leap at the defense of her friend, to say that the ones who tormented her were more likely to be agents of a malevolent force than Luna. But then she looked at the old man before her, his expression grave and concern unmistakable in his eyes, and let out a deep breath. There was wisdom in his words, she had to admit. Wouldn't it be easier to conjure an illusion of a girl rather than alter minds of so many people? She couldn't trust her perception entirely under the circumstances.

Just like before.

She nodded. "Yes, Headmaster."

Dumbledore blinked. "You have to forgive an old man," he said. "It appears my age addled my mind more than I would like to think. It seems I cannot recall what you just said, even though judging by your expression it was something important. Could you please repeat it for me?"

Ginny stared at him in disbelief.

"Headmaster!" she said quickly. "I think... I think your mind was just altered to forget what was said!"

Headmaster's expression changed instantly, becoming sharp, focused and dangerous.

He reached under his table and extracted an old-looking goblet.

"Memories are hard to erase," he said after casting a dozen spells around him. The door to the office shut tight, and the sound the trinkets made became dissonant. "Most memory charms break the connection between memories and the conscious mind, leaving them still intact. I should be able to restore them even if my mind was altered. Please pull me out if you notice any sight of danger."

Then his expression suddenly changed, became relaxed. He blinked at the wand in his hand and the goblet on his table, then looked at Ginny.

"What have transpired here, Miss Weasley?" he asked.

Ginny tried to explain what's going on to Headmaster many time, but each time his memories slipped away, forcing her to restart the cycle. Every time Dumbledore was becoming more and more pale, his hands visibly trembling.

Eventually, he excused himself by saying his age must have addled his body much more than he anticipated and asked Ginny to come tomorrow.

She left the office.

There wasn't anything she could do.

What match was she against someone who could casually rewrite the memory of the greatest wizard alive?

There wasn't anything she should do.

For all she knew it was a trap designed just for her. Luna didn't exist. She was the extension of the nightmare manifested in the real world to ensnare Ginny. And even if she was real, even if she had a family, even if she was Ginny's friend...

There must be something she could do.

Because if she didn't do something, if she allowed Luna to be trapped in that dark place of pale white flowers, if she allowed that woman or Tom to devour her, if she couldn't do anything to make things better, if she was still powerless regardless of what she was doing...

She would break.

 

[illhousen]

Chapter 2: LOG: OOLV NEUDA​

Betrayal was a poison. If Tom could betray Ginny's trust and lure her into a trap, why not Luna? It was only logical to think so under the circumstances. It was only logical to leave the mystery alone. But if Ginny accepted the possibility of Luna betraying her, she didn't think she would be able to trust anyone else freely. Every stranger was potentially dangerous, every smile could be fake. Ginny knew where those thoughts led. And the idea of becoming the sort of person to doubt everyone, to always be on a lookout for another knife in the back, to forever be defined by Tom's shadow terrified Ginny more than the perspective of confronting whoever was responsible for Luna's disappearance.

She would find Luna. And if Luna truly was just a phantom created to lure Ginny into a trap, she would face it. But she would not believe it until she had undeniable proof.

She spent the rest of the day methodically tapping walls around the Astronomy classroom, trying to follow the common routes the students used to come here at first, then going through the passages she overlooked. The entrance failed to appear, and eventually Professor Sinistra invited her into her office—decorated with hundreds of butterflies pinned to the walls—and asked her what she was doing.

Ginny tried to explain the situation, but Professor forgot everything that was said, much like Headmaster, and so she made some excuse and left.

That night found her at the entrance to the Ravenclaw common room. There were no other leads for her to follow, she knew so little about what was going on. She hoped that she could find some traces of Luna's presence in the tower, some proof that she was there and some kind of clue about what to do next.

"What can change the nature of a man?" a bronze knocker in the form of an eagle asked, startling Ginny.

She stared at it for a moment. "Would you let me in if I answer?" she asked.

"Yes," the eagle said.

Ginny nodded. That did provide a solution to her current predicament. Coming there, she didn't really have a plan on how to enter. The whole day was surreal, and she acted because she had to act rather than because she knew what she was doing. Now, though, she had to stop and think for a moment, if only to answer the riddle. She smiled humorlessly, thinking about Tom once again, returning to her earlier thoughts on Luna and what her friendship meant to her.

"Betrayal," she said. The door opened. "So that was the correct answer..."

"I don't know," the eagle said. "I was curious what you'd say."

Ginny gave the eagle a nasty look before entering the room only to instantly jump back with a yelp of fear. Something was inside, something that didn't look quite human. Ginny, ready for trouble, prepared her wand and slowly walked ahead. Whatever it was that she saw, it undoubtedly noticed her, and she would prefer to face it rather than run.

When she saw what had scared her, she let out a nervous chuckle. Just a statue. The white of marble stood stark in contrast with blue curtains decorating the room which appeared almost black in the dim starlight falling from the enchanted ceiling.

Ginny lowered her wand, though she didn't put it away completely. It was impossible to say where the pure white eyes looked, but she couldn't shake the feeling that the statue was following her every move. She listened quietly for a few moments, glancing at the statue. Someone could have heard her. But the room was silent save for the soft whispers of books promising wisdom or entertainment. Ginny glared at them with annoyance. The library books knew better than to show their desperation to be read.

After a few more moments Ginny went to search for the second year girls' dormitory. The Ravenclaw common room was different from Gryffindor's, but the layout was similar enough for the search to be quick. As Ginny entered the dormitory and saw vaguely familiar girls sleeping in their beds oblivious to her presence, she felt guilty for being there. But she had gone too far to turn back now, so she tried not to think about it and focused on finding a bed that could belong to Luna.

Unsurprisingly, it was easy to find even in the faint light coming from the open door. The bed was richly decorated with complex geometrical figures cut out of parchment and stapled onto the curtains. Feathers formed a protective circle around the bed with a crow's skull watching over the room from the floor.

Ginny smiled a little. The implications of Luna's eccentricities had scared her the day before, but now she was glad to see them. Luna might be away, but she still had some presence in this world, there was some measure of reality to her existence. While it wasn't definite proof of Luna's nature, it did reassure Ginny just a bit.

With renewed sense of purpose, she walked towards the bed intent on discovering anything that could lead her to her friend.

She didn't have to search for long. Almost immediately her gaze settled on a crude picture painted on the wall above the bed. It was a simple image, the kind that any child draws at some point - three stick figures standing for parents and child, a square house behind them and the sun above.

Ginny leaned closer to read words inscribed below the painting, but couldn't see them in the dim light. Looking around nervously to check that the girls were still sleeping, she sat on the bed and drew the curtains closed. She whispered a spell then and spent a few moments blinking, trying to adjust to the conjured light. Finally, she could see the picture clearly. It was titled The Moon.

Ginny thought it was appropriate that the words were struck out. The orb on the painting was clearly the sun, not the moon, was with bright yellow color and beams falling down on the stick family.

She blinked, and the world changed.

Ginny found herself in a vast but bare room. The moonlight shone through bars on a window set far above Ginny's head, illuminating walls and floor padded with leather. The painting was still before Ginny's eyes, disrupted by the curve of the wall now. As Ginny looked around, she could see it was not the only one painting on the wall. To be precise, it was not the only iteration of The Moon painting there. The picture was painted over and over again, row upon row with even intervals between them. Each iteration was more detailed than the previous one, the stick figures resembling real humans more and more, though they never quite reached the point of true realism, stopping just short of it with disturbing results. The mother figure disappeared at some point, never to be drawn again, and the sun lost its colors, becoming pale grey of the walls.

Ginny didn't pay too much attention to it, distracted by screams and laughter coming from behind. She turned, wand thrust before her, and saw Luna crouched over another blonde girl wearing a straightjacket and sitting on the floor.

Ginny took a step back, pressing against the wall, as she saw the source of laughter. Faceless figures lesser than humans surrounded the girl in the straightjacket, pointed at her laughing, tagged at her hair and gave her an occasional push to which she showed no reaction. The figures were two-dimensional, but they didn't stand out like cardboard cutouts. The perspective was broken around them, the world grew smaller fitting their frame and adjusting to their nature, as if it was one of those tricky pictures that would turn into a room or a corner depending on how you looked at it. Whenever they stepped close to Luna, she would fall, one leg suddenly becoming longer or shorter depending on her perspective. She tried to ward them off the girl, but they paid her no heed.

For a few moments, Ginny just stood there, watching the scene unfolding before her. However, the light of her wand attracted Luna's attention.

"Ginny!" Luna screamed in recognition.

The sound of her voice snapped Ginny out of shock and she hurried towards her friend, being careful to avoid coming too close to the bizarre figures.

"Luna! What's going on? Where are we?"

"Please!" Luna shouted not paying attention to Ginny's words. "We have to help her! What they do, it's... it's..."

"It's what they do to you," the girl said. Ginny looked at her in shock for she recognized the voice. It belonged to Luna, though coming from the girl's lips it was wrong, broken, as if each word was said at different times with different intonation as if part of a different sentence. Her face, too, was that of Luna, with the exception of eyes being replaced by solid golden orbs blindly reflecting the light.

Luna froze at her words. "W-what?" she managed to say.

"I am you and you are me, we are one and the same." The girl smiled, but with her blind eyes unmoving, it was not a comforting sight. "Loony Luna. The weird girl playing with imaginary friends because she doesn't have real ones. Dragging around dead birds and speaking of silly conspiracies in a desperate bid for attention."

"Stop it," Luna whispered.

"Luna!" Ginny shouted trying to drag her away. "We have to go! We have to get out of here!"

But Luna stood still, her eyes transfixed on her doppelganger.

"Why should I stop?" the girl asked. "You've refused to face reality for so long, ever since Mom died."

"No..." Luna hugged herself, still crouching. She was visibly shaking.

"You crafted your own little world, free from real dangers, free from pain and death. For years you perfected it, trying to lose yourself."

"Luna! Come on! You don't have to listen to it!"

"But..." The girl's smile faded. "It didn't work. No matter how hard you try, they won't stop tormenting you. No matter how much you hide, the pain doesn't go away. The old and the new."

"Shut up!" Luna closed her eyes and shut her ears, screaming at the girl.

Ginny tried again to drag her away, but Luna fell on her knees, causing Ginny to fall, too. They probably wouldn't be able to walk far anyway. The figures were all around them, though now silent, still.

"This is who we are. This is what we are. Broken. Incomplete."

"I am not you!"

The girl laughed, a strange broken sound rising in volume then suddenly stopping and starting anew, over and over.

Luna screamed and went limp.

"Luna!" Ginny shouted, trying to support her weight and get away from the girl.

The laugh stopped as abruptly as it has started.

"This is not the world I desire," the girl proclaimed.

Her skin parted, revealing bloodied bones and organs expanding and turning into metal. The entrails turned into a rusty chain coiled around Luna's legs, dragging her into a cage forming from the ribs. Ginny held onto her friend with all her strength, but the chain twisted, hitting Ginny in the face and throwing her away from Luna who was dragged into the quickly forming cage, the girl's beating heart hanging above her.

"This is not the world I permit."

The metamorphosis continued, flesh and metal combining in grotesque ways, the cage expanding and forcing Ginny to crawl away so as not to be consumed by it. The heart lost its colors, becoming dirty white and starting to shine. Her perspective of the inside of the cage shifted, and Luna became a speck on the surface of a newly formed moon. The girl's skin became curtains drawn around the cage, leaving only the top of it exposed, allowing it to be seen only by the girl's head. Her neck was broken, fixed in place with metal poles in such a way that she could not look away from the sight below her. Her hands and legs split, bones, muscles and blood vessels becoming dark metal tendrils, each holding a mirror. The tendrils rotated around the cage, forming a complex configuration so each of them would contain a pair of empty golden orbs.

The end result somehow reminded Ginny of an old model of the Solar System she saw in Astronomy classroom, and she giggled at the thought. She was going to die here.

This world shouldn't be

Pale light shone from the cage, reflecting first in the golden orbs and then in dozens of mirrors, slowly spreading around the room. And what the light touched ceased to be. The two-dimensional figures were torn to shreds, letting the world snap back into its proper perspective only to be torn apart in a more permanent manner. Ginny screamed when she realized that two fingers on her left hand had disappeared. There had been no pain. There was no blood. Her skin was as smooth as if she had never had those fingers.

Desperately dodging the rays of light, she tried to get on her feet. The walls and floor around her crumbled, revealing nothingness outside. She knew that soon she would follow. Rising to her knees, she cast a random spell from her book, the first one she happened to remember. She couldn't recall its effect, but whatever it was, it didn't work on the abomination before her. Frantically jumping away from a net of light forming around her, she cast a few more spells. Two mirrors broke, one spawning a swarm of bees in the process, but the bees were quick to escape and other mirrors easily rearranged themselves to compensate for the missing two. More tendrils sprouted from the cage, completing the configuration again.

She ducked under yet another beam, falling to the floor and rolling away, trying to pay attention to the chasms opening around her. She succeeded at that, but as she was rising on her feet, a chasm opened underneath her, causing her to fall. The fall brought her wand in the path of another beam. Ginny looked in disbelief at a single unicorn hair severed in half.

Resisting despair to the last, she thrust the remnant of her wand in the direction of the abomination and whispered in the language of angels, praying to anyone who would listen to save her, to not let everything end like this.

Something listened.

Ginny screamed as she felt her blood boil, veins on her hands bulging and turning black. Something was inside of her and its desire to get out was stronger than her flesh. Her vision went black, but it wasn't just her fading consciousness. A grand figure of a two-headed dragon emerged in front of her, blocking the light. It exhaled, smoke twisting in the air in a form of snakes. Where they met the beams, light shattered, shining brightly for a moment before dissipating harmlessly. A young boy with a pair of broken white wings on his back was sitting on the dragon's back. The light reflected strangely from the pair, it reminded Ginny of oil paintings which became blurry when the characters in them moved, the paint slow to catch up.

The boy looked at her and suddenly Ginny's consciousness split to encompass two bodies. She was still her lying on the ground with the lump of a wand aimed now at the dragon, but she was also the boy riding the dragon. Surprisingly, there was little confusion. She knew what she had to do.

The dragon marched towards the abomination, exhaling a new cloud of smoke every few steps. Ginny followed a few steps behind. She tried to move fast, but it was difficult with more and more chasms opening around them, threatening to consume the procession and forcing them to search for a way around. As they drew closer, the light diagram became more and more tight, leaving little room for maneuver and bypassing the smoke cloud, taking away chunks of the dragon.

It mattered little. In the end the dragon reached the abomination and smashed the mirror configuration with its only remaining head. The abomination screamed as the dragon's teeth tore into its flesh. Metal tendrils extended from its main body, trying to strangle the dragon, but that just made the dragon struggle with that much more force, breaking the cage apart.

For a moment the moon shone brightly, freed from its restraints, and then the abomination was gone, her eyes not leaving the sight of the moon until the end.

The dragon and its rider, too, disappeared in a cloud of smoke which Ginny inhaled. She found herself back in one piece and fell on her knees, the last of her strength having left her body. She blacked out for a minute, then came back to her senses lying in Luna's lap, her injured hand held tightly.

Luna's doppelganger was standing above them, back in its human form, slowly drifting away on a disjoint platform as the last remnants of the room continued to fall apart, illuminated by moonlight with no source.

"Maybe you are right," Luna said with a shaking voice. "Maybe I did want to escape. Maybe I did reject reality for delusion. But there is more to it than what you say. There is more to me than you. My father is still with me. He loves me. He believes in things he tells me about, so I believe in them as well. Your very existence proves that there is more to the world than we know. Maybe they don't exist, maybe humans are just cruel and their minds are not clouded at all, but I won't know if I don't try to find out. And even if some people reject and mock me, there are bound to be those who will accept me as well." She squeezed Ginny's hand tighter still. "So, I guess I have to accept that things I believe in may not be real, but I won't reject them all right away. I... I'll figure it out as I go and see what fits the world I observe."

The doppelganger smiled and nodded, becoming part of the moonlight. A few pale sparks landed on Luna's hand, becoming a card which she clutched tightly and held close to her chest.

The room became nothing and for a moment Ginny was no more. She experienced being pure consciousness, an existence free of flesh, free of sensations and free of life. It scared her and in her fear she reached into her memories, trying to conjure an image of her world to replace the emptiness. She found herself back in Ravenclaw dormitory, unable to tell if she had returned to her world or created it from scratch.

Such existential thoughts were forgotten, however, when she saw Luna sitting beside her.

"Luna!" Ginny shouted, fiercely hugging her friend. "We... We're back! We've made it!"

Her shouts woke up other girls, one of whom clapped her hands to turn on the light, another came to Luna's bed and drew the curtains open.

"Luna!" she said after seeing Luna and Ginny. "You know it's against the rules!"

Ginny giggled, and the giggle turned into a slightly maniacal laugh at the words of the girl. The laugh stopped abruptly when she looked at Luna's face which turned an unhealthy bluish color. Luna was trembling and clearly had trouble breathing. She coughed violently as Ginny released her hug and withered leaves fell on the bed.

Ginny stared at them in horror for a moment, before turning to the assembling girls.

"Quick!" she shouted. "Get Madam Pomfrey!"

***​

She spent the next three days in a haze. There were questions, of course, and she tried to provide truthful answers, but as before they slipped their minds almost immediately. Without Ginny's input, the Hogwarts staff conjured their own explanation and now thought it was a prank gone too far. Ginny hoped that perhaps this would result in the girls bullying Luna being punished or at least easing up on her, but she didn't have high hopes, for there was another aspect to forgetfulness she hadn't noticed earlier. Ginny had expected to be surrounded by her family, perhaps even being pulled away from Hogwarts to spend some time with her parents. And while she was annoyed at their doting over the summer, right now she would have welcomed it. To her surprise, however, nobody was really interested in talking about the incident. While people did not deny the evidence presented to them like Ginny's missing fingers, and plans were made to replace her wand, it felt as if those concerns were pushed to the back of their minds. Even when they talked about Ginny and Luna's treatment or other related matters, they would do so as if against their will and jump at any opportunity to change the subject.

Ginny felt as if a great curtain was closing around her, creating a boundary between her and the ones she loved.

She didn't regret her actions, however, especially now that she'd finally gotten a chance to visit Luna in the hospital wing. Seeing her sleeping with a soft smile on her face, Ginny knew what she did couldn't be wrong. Even though she'd paid a price for it, even though she still didn't know what was really going on, even though she suspected she would soon be entangled even further into this mystery, she could not imagine doing anything differently. Her first true friend was alive and well. She wasn't powerless anymore.

Ginny stood near the entrance to the hospital wing for a long moment, just basking in the peacefulness that she so rarely experienced lately. Then she quietly approached Luna. As her shadow fell on Luna, the latter stirred, waking up and slowly opening her eyes.

"Ginny," Luna greeted her with a smile.

"Hey," Ginny said. "How are you?"

"Fine. Madam Pomfrey said I will be released tomorrow. There were flowers in my lungs, but she was able to extract them all and repair the damage. And you?"

"I'll live," Ginny said, hiding her injured hand. The fingers were replaced with replicas that looked real, but they weren't animated. Magical prostheses were expensive, especially since her body apparently forgot how to control two missing fingers, so magic would have to do it for her. Ginny had asked for her new wand to be installed in place of one of the prostheses but was told it couldn't work like that. That was highly disappointing to her.

"Madam Pomfrey told me about your hand," Luna said. Apparently the gesture didn't escape her attention. "You can take my fingers if you want."

Ginny stared at her. Luna looked entirely sincere.

"Thanks, but you can keep them," Ginny said eventually.

Luna nodded. "About what happened... there..." she started to say hesitantly.

"Leave it," Ginny interrupted. "What happened... Well, I bet it gave you a lot to think about. It sure as hell did for me. What it was, what will happen next, what should we do, what does it all mean... And, honestly, I don't know. My thoughts started to run in circles, so I stopped wondering about all that." Ginny stepped closer to Luna and took her hand in her own, healthy one. "What I do know is that you are here now and I am here too, and that has to be enough for the moment. And if someone tries to challenge us, I'll kick their arse."

Luna smiled broadly at her. "Us against the world?"

"Meh, I can take them," Ginny said trying to ignore the black blot marking her hand.

 

[illhousen]

Chapter 3: In the Shadow of God​

"So, what now?" Luna asked. She was sitting by Ginny's side at breakfast, having been released from the hospital the previous day.

Ginny sighed. "I don't really know. I had that dream where I saw the entrance to the secret room under the Astronomy tower. Well, I saw a girl talking about it. But when I tried to find it, it failed to appear. I guess we can try again or just smash through the wall with a spell... We should also look out for other disappearances, though I am not sure anything would come from it. I don't really know many people here aside from my family."

"Actually..." Luna said hesitantly. "I meant what do we do in general. You want to go after whoever is responsible, but... do we have to? I mean, what happened there..."

Ginny looked at Luna with surprise. She sighed again and looked at the crowd filling the Great Hall.

"You know, there is supposed to be a thousand students in Hogwarts," she said. "I've heard it somewhere. But looking at the crowd here, I don't think there are even five hundred. I did the math, too, based on the number of people in classrooms I know about. They don't fit. Yet nobody notices, nobody comments. And I think I know why..." Ginny looked back at Luna with a soft smile. "What happened to you was horrible, and I wouldn't think any less of you if you left it at that. We'll still be friends. But I don't think I can leave it behind. For whatever reason I am the only one with my memory intact. I am the only one who can do anything about it. I can't back out, no matter how much I want to."

Luna looked at Ginny for a long moment biting her lip.

"I'll go with you," she said eventually with a heavy sigh. "Not for them, though," she said gesturing towards the crowd. "I'll do it to keep you safe. You'd be lost without me, with all those vermis biting your heart and driving you forward."

Ginny released a breath she didn't know she was holding. "Thank you."

"Astoria Greengrass," Luna said looking at the crowd.

"Huh?"

"Pretty sure she's not here. And she never misses a breakfast."

"How do you know her?" Ginny vaguely remembered the name from her sorting ceremony. Waiting for her turn to be sorted and looking at the sea of unfamiliar faces in search for her brothers she was very surprised to notice a Slytherin girl waving for her until she realized the gesture was aimed at a short nervous girl standing next to her.

"I don't," Luna said. "Not really. I remember her name from the sorting. It's pretty, and I thought we could be friends, but her older sister, Daphne, scared me away."

Ginny frowned. "Is she one of the girls who take your things?"

"No..." Luna hesitated before continuing. "She is just, you know... weird."

Ginny blinked. "Right. So, you think Astoria is missing?"

"I don't know for sure, but we can ask her sister. If she remembers about Astoria, she should be fine. Or in danger from some other, unrelated thing." Luna frowned. "Just don't take any pamphlets from her."

Ginny looked at Luna dubiously, but shrugged. "I guess it can't hurt. Is she here?" she asked standing up and searching for a half-forgotten face at the Slytherin table.

"Yeah. " Luna led the pair to a blonde girl sitting by herself at an edge of the table skimming through some thin book.

Once she noticed them, the girl put away her book and beamed at Luna.

"Hey, Luna," she said. "Changed your mind?"

"Hey, Daphne. I didn't really think about it," Luna said quickly. She hesitated then, glancing at Ginny's injured hand. "Though I guess I can look over your pamphlets again?"

"Of course!" Daphne positively radiated cheer as she handed Luna a bunch of colorful pamphlets which she seemed to produce out of nowhere. Ginny tried to see the pictures on them - something about the forms she managed to notice disturbed her - but Luna quickly covered them up and hid them in her bag. "Our group meets on Sundays, in case you've forgotten, under the lake. Do you remember how to get there?"

"Yeah," Luna said.

"Good! So, you'll come?"

"I'll... think about it," Luna said, clearly uncomfortable.

"Great! We'll have a cake! Well, if Wilbur actually manages to make it right this time, anyway..."

Ginny cleared her throat. "Actually, we have a question for you." Luna gave her a grateful look.

"Oh, sorry!" Daphne said turning to Ginny. "I was just excited to meet Luna again. You're Ginny Weasley, right? Do you want to come to our meeting, too?"

"Err... Not at the moment," Ginny said after glancing at Luna. "I just wanted to ask you if you know where to find Astoria."

"Who?"

"Astoria Greengrass?" Luna said. "She shares her last name with you, so I thought you would know her."

Daphne blinked. "Why would I..." She stopped and looked at Luna. "Right, nevermind. And no, I've never heard about her, pretty sure. Sorry."

"It's fine," Ginny said. "Thanks for your help anyway."

"Are you sure you don't want to learn about the group?"

"Maybe some other time."

Daphne beamed at her. "Great! Don't hesitate to ask!"

With that, Luna and Ginny walked away.

"Don't ask," Luna said before Ginny could open her mouth. "Some things were not meant to be known. Their cake is one of them."

"Right," Ginny said. "So, now we know for sure that Astoria is missing. I guess we should do what I did to find you: go to Slytherin's dormitories, watch out for weird paintings. Only this time I'll do it smart and ask the experts how to get there."

"Experts?"

***​

"Why'd you want to get into Slytherin's dungeons?" Fred asked. The moment she'd explained why she needed his help, he'd pulled her aside and led into an empty classroom which bore the marks of frequent testing of twins' inventions.

He'd cast a few spells on the entrance then, some of which Ginny had recognized from her visit to the headmaster.

Ginny took a deep breath. "I can't explain, really sorry. But it's something really important. Can you help?"

"Is it connected to..." Fred looked at Ginny's hand, then at Luna.

"Yeah," Ginny said.

"Look," George said, "if you need help, I mean, not just with getting into the dungeons, but with dealing with..."

"Thanks," Ginny said, interrupting him. "And I mean it. But no. It's... not something you can help me with, aside from providing directions. Sorry."

George and Fred exchanged glances.

"All right," Fred said. "We'll help." He then told her the directions and the current password to the Slytherin common room.

"And here is something more," George said showing her a piece of clear parchment. "We wanted to give it to Harry since he can't visit Hogsmead, but since there is something more important..."

"What is it?" Ginny asked.

George grinned. With a flourish he waved his wand over the parchment and said, "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good!"

Words and lines started to appear on the parchment, but Ginny couldn't concentrate on them. She took a step back as if expecting the parchment to leap at her at any moment.

"Are you mad? What is it? Where did you get it?"

George and Fred exchanged glances.

"Damn," Fred said. "Sorry, Ginny, we didn't think..."

"Of course you didn't!" Ginny shouted. "You should get rid of it! Or take it to Headmaster."

"Look," George said, "we get that you are upset, and really, we are sorry. But we've used it for a long time already. It hasn't caused trouble. The map just shows the map of Hogwarts with people marked as moving dots. There is nothing more to it."

"And you know that how?" Ginny asked. "There are subtle spells, spells you can't feel until it's too late. Before you wake up with... blood... on your hands..." she trailed off, staring into space and breathing heavily. Silence lingered on the scene for far too long.

"Shit," George said. "I guess we botched this one good."

"We'll take it to Dumbledore," Fred said. "Promise. We've memorized the secret passages marked here anyway, so no great loss even if it turns out fine."

Ginny slowly nodded. "Yeah, you do that." After a few moments, she added, "I... uh... sorry about the outburst..."

"Nah," Fred said. "We understand, really. It was dumb of us to show you this, and we should have handed it to Dumbledore after you demonstrated us the dangers of talking paper in person."

That managed to produce a chuckle from Ginny. "Yeah, you two should learn from my mistakes. You certainly don't learn from yours."

"You wound us, truly," George said. "Take care of yourself, will you?"

"Yeah," Ginny said. "You too."

They parted ways.

"You were silent during the conversation," Ginny said to Luna as they walked down into the dungeons. "Is everything fine?"

"Yes. I didn't want to interrupt. Is it always like that?"

"What?"

"Talking with your family. I don't have much experience in it. You got mad, but then you joked around with them. It looked a bit weird. Is it normal?"

"I guess. I don't think much about it." Ginny shrugged. "It's just something that happens. They can be a handful, but in the end I know they have my back, so it's hard to stay mad at them."

"Huh. Perhaps I should study families alongside nargles. They seem to be equally fascinating."

For the next few minutes they navigated the narrow corridors of the dungeons, Ginny murmuring the directions given to her and counting turns.

"Are we going to just walk into the Slytherin room?" Luna asked.

"Yeah," Ginny said. "The classes are starting soon, so there shouldn't be any people. If there are, we'll come up with something. You aren't expected in classes yet, right?"

"No. Madam Pomfrey told me to take it easy for the next two days."

"And I'm still waiting for my new wand to arrive. So, nobody should miss us."

"Unless we disappear there forever. Though, given how that place operates, I guess nobody would miss us then, either." Luna said calmly.

The rest of the trip was spent in silence.

***​

"Is that it?" Luna asked.

The girls were holding hands as they stood before a painting on the wall above what they presumed was Astoria's bed. The painting depicted a black humanoid silhouette inside a green circle. It was titled The Sun

"I think so," Ginny said. "Though nothing happens. The last time the world changed the moment I read the title."

"Hmmm... What did my picture look like, anyway?"

"It was titled the Moon, the words crossed out. Though the actual painting was showing a family standing beneath a sun."

"Huh. Well, this Sun isn't like a sun at all, so I guess the paintings are consistent. Though it doesn't look like the Moon either. Unless it's a particularly green moon."

The world changed while Luna was speaking, a soft light taking the place of the dungeon gloom. The girls now stood in a circle of vibrant grass surrounded by a cement wall on which the painting of The Sun could still be seen. Only a small piece of clear blue sky could be seen above them, so tall was the wall.

A girl in a light brightly-colored dress was sitting in the grass, playing around with a few pale white flowers.

"Oh, hi there," she said smiling broadly as she noticed Luna and Ginny. Ginny noted that her eyes were solid gold, shining brightly in the sunlight. "Want to play?"

"Astoria?" Ginny asked.

"Yeah, that's my name," the girl said standing up and clearing her dress from dirt. "What are yours?"

"Ginny and Luna," Ginny said looking around. She wasn't sure how to proceed. The girl before her most likely was the same kind of being as the one she encountered while rescuing Luna, but there was no sign of real Astoria in sight. Should she try asking the girl before her about it? Should she even talk with her at all? Perhaps it was better to search around, but could she afford to ignore the girl?

"Where is the other Astoria?" Luna asked.

The girl's smile fell.

"She's not here," she said.

"Where is she?" Luna asked.

"Outside," the girl said. "It's scary there, you shouldn't go. You can just stay with me and play."

"We have to," Ginny said.

"Don't you want to save her, if it's scary outside?" Luna asked.

The girl looked at her feet.

"Yeah," she said. "She is out there, alone, surrounded by... Surrounded. At the bottom of..." The girl looked at them, biting her lip. "I... I can't go there. I can't. And... and neither should you. You'll be lost."

"We will, though," Ginny said. "It's fine if you don't want to go, but we are going to rescue her. Can you tell us where to go?"

The girl nodded and walked to the wall. She breathed at it, and the wall parted, revealing a narrow entrance.

"I would wish you to be safe, but you won't be," the girl said.

Ginny peered outside and was met with darkness. The sunlight floating from the entrance was consumed almost instantly, leaving only a small space right before Ginny, made even smaller by her shadow. She couldn't see what was lying ahead, but she could swear that something was moving there, for the darkness was shivering.

Ginny took a deep breath and stepped forward. Luna took a moment at the entrance to cast a spell conjuring light.

As they walked further the darkness slowly parted around them, letting her just barely make out the details of that place, sending shivers down her spine. She'd never been there, but she could not be mistaken in her recognition, no matter how much she wished she was.

"Azkaban," she whispered, looking at the row of cells at each side of her, with dark tattered figures floating between them.

Ginny looked warily at dementors, expecting them to draw closer, to do what they did on the train, but they paid her no heed. She looked back at Luna and saw her leaning close to the bars, peering inside a cell.

"There is someone inside," Luna whispered as Ginny walked closer to her.

Ginny peered inside as well and soon noticed a form crouched in the darkest corner of the cell. The details were impossible to make out, though Ginny thought she could see dirty blonde hair hiding the face of the figure.

"Is it Astoria?" Ginny whispered.

"I don't think so," Luna whispered back. "Didn't the other Astoria say that she is at the bottom? This one is probably like those two-dimensional figures you saw around me. We should go down."

Ginny nodded. They left the cell behind them and started walking down the corridor, carefully avoiding the dementors floating by. Ginny shivered each time they came closer to one, wondering if a flush of dark memories was a reaction to their presence or merely an echo of her experience with the real ones.

As they walked, it became clear that each cell contained a prisoner. Or perhaps the prisoner, for every one of them looked like the same tall woman with blonde hair. Some of them were gaunt, clearly malnourished and exhausted, while others radiated vigor. Some crouched in the dark corners of their cells, clawing at the walls every time a dementor came near. Others stood on their knees right behind bars, hands folded in a prayer. Others still stood defiant and proud, growing paler as the dementors approached, but never bowing down. All, however, were unmistakeably the same person. And all were silent. Even when their lips parted in prayer or scream, no sound could be heard.

"What's going on here?" Ginny whispered as they descended down the stairs to another row of cells. "Who are they?"

"They kinda look like an older Astoria and Daphne. Maybe they metaphorically represent what Astoria is afraid of becoming?" Luna whispered back.

"Or maybe it's their mother."

"That would be a stretch, I think," Luna whispered. "I mean..."

She was interrupted by a woman's voice.

"Ah," the voice said. "You must be the intruders disturbing my garden. What a noisy pair of children. Leave now, and I shall suffer your existence."

Ginny turned around, trying to find the source of voice. Luna stood still, rising her wand high, making the light brighter.

"Who are you?" Ginny demanded, straining her eyes trying to see anything in the darkness beyond the spell light.

She saw it in the darkest shadows around them. A light so bright it could not be seen by human eyes, appearing as another patch of darkness. It could be registered only by the afterimage it burned into Ginny's sight. As she blinked tears away, the blots dancing in her vision slowly took form of words.

Once, there was a maiden who wanted to be perfect.

"I am someone beyond your comprehension," the voice answered.

Her love was forbidden,
So she cut away her love.

"Where are you?" Ginny shouted. "Show yourself!"

Her hatred threatened to consume her,
So she cut away her hatred.

"You intrude upon matters you don't understand and can't hope to stop." the voice said. "Leave. Now. It is your final warning."

As she cut away more and more of herself, she changed and became afraid.
So she cut away her fear of cutting.

"No!" Ginny said. "We are not leaving without Astoria."

Since then she never stopped cutting until she became nothing.

"Then you won't leave here at all."

I am everything she is not.

The dementors, until now content with floating from cell to cell, turned towards the girls. The atmosphere grew heavy and cold, and as the dark figures approached, Ginny could feel her vision narrowing, the darkness taking her sight inch by inch. Ginny knew that should she move, should her sight shift even slightly, she would find herself back in the Chamber of Secret, listening to the dripping of water and smelling old death.

"No," she whispered.

She had to move. Each moment of hesitation was bringing the dementors closer.

She couldn't move. Not with something much worse waiting behind her.

Oblivion was better than hell, and the dark figures in tattered cloth before her promised her release from her sorrows.

The bright light put an end to her entrapment. As she turned to look at it, she saw a chariot emanating bright cold silver light, with two bulls pulling it. A woman in flowing toga stood tall and proud in it, her face hidden by a helmet decorated with a crescent moon.

Luna stood by her side, eyes filled with a cold light. She smiled at Ginny and beckoned her to come closer.

Ginny looked around, fearful of dementors, but they were repelled by the light, sticking to shadows where the voice dwelt.

Ginny made her way onto the chariot, and stepping inside was like stepping into a dream. Nothing felt quite real, but everything held meaning Ginny could almost but not quite comprehend. Luna took her hand and said, "I guess you are the one in need of saving this time."

Ginny smiled back, though the words disturbed her.

"We should move," she said.

Luna nodded and tugged at woman's dress.

The chariot started to move, crushing dementors under its wheels and the legs of the bulls. As they died, they turned into a heavy dark mist sticking close to the floor and marking the chariot's passage.

"That is not going to work," the voice said when the chariot started to gain speed.

More dementors emerged from shadows. All were crushed by the chariot, but the mist remained, filling the air, bringing bad dreams and twisted memories with each breath Ginny took.

She coughed violently, lungs burning, throat numb, and rasped, "Faster! We need to go faster!"

Luna nodded, coughing herself. The bulls doubled their efforts, but more and more dementors were closing in on the girls. The light repelled them, but others pushed them back to their target. Not every one of them could be rammed by the bulls, and soon Ginny felt cold touches on her skin, leaving her numb.

Her vision started to dim again. Luna faltered by her side, leaning closer on the chariot.

Desperately, Ginny looked forward, hoping against hope to see their goal, but the row of cells merely continued to the next flight of stairs, promising a lengthy descent.

"Your struggle is futile," the voice said, and Ginny knew it to be true.

In desperation she turned inwards, trying to find the part of herself that was the rider of a two-headed dragon. She found it easily, a shimmering dark presence under her skin, defying the numbness left by the cold touch. She let it out, and the dragon, whole again, materialized before her, causing the chariot to turn and abruptly stop. The dragon recoiled from the dementors, and the voice laughed.

"Even the power you hold in your heart is meaningless here."

Ginny was the winged dragon rider now as well as herself, but despair didn't leave her. She tried to find a solution, tried to think of anything she could do.

Down, she thought. We have to go down.

The dragon exhaled poisonous smoke, which coiled into serpentine shapes, dissolving the floor. It parted easily, world growing fragile, and the group fell to the floor below. Ginny held tightly to Luna, who wasn't looking good.

"Ginny?" she said, her eyes unfocused.

"We're going to see it through," Ginny said, for her own benefit more than for Luna's.

The dragon exhaled again, sending them to the next level, and again, leaving each before the dementors from around and above them could catch up with them.

She prepared to make the dragon exhale again, then noticed that their surroundings had changed. Gone was the endless corridor, gone were the narrow flights of stairs. They were in a round chamber, similar to the one where the girl with gold eyes dwelt. Only the contents were different.

An altar stood at the dead center of the chamber, surrounded by a circle of candles broken by the chariot's fall. On top of the altar a blonde girl was lying, looking just the same as the girl above, save for her blue eyes. She watched the group before her without expression.

Ginny grinned. "Astoria!" she said. "Look, Luna, we've found her!"

Luna smiled faintly, visibly trying to focus.

"Yeah," she said. "And we're both alive."

Ginny crawled off the chariot, awkwardly providing support to Luna while trying not to put weight on her injured hand. Together, they slowly approached Astoria.

"No!" the disembodied voice screamed. "You won't take her!"

Astoria's lips parted in a silent scream, but only plants emerged from them. A single, pale white flower bloomed and withered right afterwards, rotted petals falling to the floor. Astoria's face froze, still looking as if she were screaming, and the world shattered.

Ginny and Luna fell into darkness, their companions dissolving into them. Again there was a terrifying moment of nothingness, though this time it was filled by all the screams that had been silenced until now.

***​

She fell hard on the wooden floor of the classroom, Luna lying unconscious beside her. She clasped the girl's hand, looking wildly about, and barely noticing the confused and scared faces of the students and Professor Lupin before her gaze settled on what looked like a wardrobe. There was a dark hole in it, leading to places Ginny didn't want to imagine. The hole was spreading, not contained by the boundaries of physical world, consuming all that was behind it. Ginny could swear she saw forms of dementors swirling inside.

"Weasley?" an incredulous voice said. Ginny turned sharply, to see Draco Malfoy pointing a wand at her.

"Run!" she screamed, starting to drag Luna to the classroom door.

 

[Baughn]

Well, I--

Wow.

There are a few tense errors and simple mistakes, which would have been caught by a beta-reader. You should get one. I'd happily volunteer, because this is excellent, though I'm struggling a little to put it in context. A touch of Ib, there? Nice. If scary. The Collective Unconscious is rarely quite this dangerous.

Well-done horror. RIght now, I'm expecting that nothing will come after them... =

 

[illhousen]

There are a few tense errors and simple mistakes, which would have been caught by a beta-reader. You should get one. I'd happily volunteer, because this is excellent, though I'm struggling a little to put it in context.

Click to shrink...

That would be welcome. English is not my native language, so I often struggle with its finer points. If you would send me a list of errors, I will correct them shortly.

 

[RoboRenee]

Well that was intense. Looks like shit got weird(er), too. Did they just got vomited out by a boggart?

 

[illhousen]

Well that was intense. Looks like shit got weird(er), too. Did they just got vomited out by a boggart?

Click to shrink...

Boggarts in this version are little holes into the shadow world. That's how they know your secret fears.

 

[RoboRenee]

Boggarts in this version are little holes into the shadow world. That's how they know your secret fears.

Click to shrink...

Hmm. Certainly makes the whole 'boggart under your bed' gig even more disturbing than it already was.

 

[Oh I am slain!]

This is fantastic so far. The atmosphere of it has been very well-crafted.

 

[Riha]

Wow, just wow. This is definitely one of the best things I've ever read on this site.

 

[Quickshot0]

I wonder if certain kind of healing spells could restore those fingers, or if they're lost for good. Hmmm...

 

[illhousen]

I wonder if certain kind of healing spells could restore those fingers, or if they're lost for good. Hmmm...

Click to shrink...

On Persona side, the way I play it Personae don't have specific spells, just general abilities inspired by their imagery. So, if you get a Persona strongly associated with healing and creation, it's a possibility.

On HP side, judging by Moody, they have troubles with healing wounds caused by dark magic, and something that was made not to be would most likely be beyond their ability to restore.

 

[Quickshot0]

Well I'd already assumed that was the case on the HP side, and it kind of fits on what I remember from it. I was just thinking that Persona had a different view on what everything exactly is, and thus might allow for restoration in certain cases. Though it sounds like she'd need to luck out on getting the right kind though.

So I guess she'll have to get used to the lack, that's probably going to be quite troubling at times. Loss of fingers really cuts down on your fine control a good bit in a hand.

 

[Ardion Prosili]

WHAT THE FUCK. WHY IS THIS SHIT SO TERRIFYING. ;A;

. The Collective Unconscious is rarely quite this dangerous.

Click to shrink...

....right because its -never- tried to do anything like destroy all of Earth of anything.
I will admit that its never been this particular KIND of dangerous. I mean, fuck, unmaking people? That's like...the most terrifying shit.

 

[Baughn]

On Persona side, the way I play it Personae don't have specific spells, just general abilities inspired by their imagery. So, if you get a Persona strongly associated with healing and creation, it's a possibility.

On HP side, judging by Moody, they have troubles with healing wounds caused by dark magic, and something that was made not to be would most likely be beyond their ability to restore.

Click to shrink...

It's not exactly dark magic, but Ginny's fingers were.. excised.. by a weapon formed from the collective unconscious, while she was physically in the collective unconscious. It doesn't matter if they can restore her fingers; as the people at St. Mungo's said, she's now missing the parts of her mind needed to use them.

Luna's offer is a better one than you'd think. If Ginny wants her fingers back, then she'll also need to recover that part of her mind; copying part of Luna's would do the trick, although possibly with interesting side-effects.

....right because its -never- tried to do anything like destroy all of Earth of anything.
I will admit that its never been this particular KIND of dangerous. I mean, fuck, unmaking people? That's like...the most terrifying shit.

Click to shrink...

Well, maybe once or twice...

I was mostly surprised that she'd end up that deep in it, that quickly, and with permanent consequences for her health almost right out of the gate. This is Persona, not SMT; stories tend to have longer warm-up periods.

Though I guess...

The warmup period started years ago, when Sally lost her fight.

Their bad end was reached not much later, with half the student body lost and no-one even realising.

Ginny and Luna? They're picking up the pieces, with their enemy already close to victorious.

 

[Baughn]

...okay, wait. Half the student population of Hogwarts eaten; possibly more. How many important characters does HP have, again? Ginny, Luna, Ron, Harry, the twins, Hermione... plenty more. Are they all safe?

Has anyone seen Hermione lately? She hasn't been mentioned in the narration.

 

[illhousen]

It's not exactly dark magic, but Ginny's fingers were.. excised.. by a weapon formed from the collective unconscious, while she was physically in the collective unconscious. It doesn't matter if they can restore her fingers; as the people at St. Mungo's said, she's now missing the parts of her mind needed to use them.

Luna's offer is a better one than you'd think. If Ginny wants her fingers back, then she'll also need to recover that part of her mind; copying part of Luna's would do the trick, although possibly with interesting side-effects.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, it's a good explanation.

...okay, wait. Half the student population of Hogwarts eaten; possibly more. How many important characters does HP have, again? Ginny, Luna, Ron, Harry, the twins, Hermione... plenty more. Are they all safe?

Has anyone seen Hermione lately? She hasn't been mentioned in the narration.

Click to shrink...

Actually, the whole "there is supposed to be a thousand students in Hogwarts" thing is from some interview with Rowling. People keep pointing out how the numbers don't match: there is about ten people in Harry's year per house, so forty first years total. Assuming the numbers hold across years, it gives us 40*7=280 students. Even assuming that Harry's class was unusually small, it still doesn't make much sense since you need, like, forty people per year per house to get thousand students, and then you run into the problem of there not being enough teachers.

So, naturally the answer is that they were all eaten.

 

[Oh I am slain!]

Actually, the whole "there is supposed to be a thousand students in Hogwarts" thing is from some interview with Rowling. People keep pointing out how the numbers don't match: there is about ten people in Harry's year per house, so forty first years total. Assuming the numbers hold across years, it gives us 40*7=280 students. Even assuming that Harry's class was unusually small, it still doesn't make much sense since you need, like, forty people per year per house to get thousand students, and then you run into the problem of there not being enough teachers.

So, naturally the answer is that they were all eaten.

Click to shrink...

Fans really have debated the population issue quite a bit, and this is the best explanation of the discrepancy I've seen.

 

[illhousen]

Small update: @Baughn has finished betaing the fic, and all chapters have been replaced with the corrected versions. No major changes, but various mistakes are fixed now and some scenes should be a bit more clear.

The next chapter, titled The Living Mirror of Heaven, is planned out, and I hope to write it over the weekend.

For now, a small teaser:

Gone

 

[Quickshot0]

I have a question, when you put a line through a text like that, should you read like its opposite, or perhaps in this case like 'not' gone?

Or is that already over thinking the matter?

 

[pressea]

I read it as "zalgo text only actually readable" and was very happy that illhousen was not using zalgo

 

[Alasnuyo]

If I have to venture forth a guess... considering the idea that contributed to this story's background, would it be correct to assume that the predation on the students is the Perfect Maiden's attempt to exist again? Nature abhorring vacuum and all.

 

[Chloe Sullivan]

That bit with the nargles and the bullying... I was like "you utter bastard"

My poor feels.

 

[Tirfarthuan]

Excellently done, nice symbolism, laughed a little at your explanation for the student population.

...May not be getting much sleep tonight. A character getting becoming retgone is a tragedy. Half the school being retgone is fucking terrifying. And speaking of which, how much does that woman thing need to eat anyway? Actually, what is it up to? For that matter, how does it even exist?

People don't necessarily stop affecting the collect unconscious when they die, but they wouldn't be able to sustain a shadow. A dead person can't deny anything, so the person's shadow shouldn't be able to last long unless it is enough of a person in its own right somehow. In which case it has to have the capacity for personal growth, meaning it wouldn't need to eat people. Though... it might just want to. A sense of self doesn't necessarily correspond with human priorities or morals.

And for that matter, in Harry Potter, dead doesn't mean gone. If the person became a ghost, or imbedded enough personality or soul or even just memories into an object, they wouldn't really be gone. Or maybe a curse? Dark magic is implied to be very heavily loaded with emotions. Something like that would be able to maintain the existence of the shadow, perhaps.