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When Harry next awoke, he felt grass under his cheek. Unlike the last couple times, he awoke very suddenly, and fully aware of his situation. At first, he thought he must be back in the burning forest that he had encountered Dumbledore in, but that was quickly proven wrong. The air around him was cool, and the scents rather normal for a forest, even a bit pleasant. He bolted upright, and looked around. He was in a forest alright, although he couldn't see much more than that. Everything past a good distance out, maybe fifty feet, was shrouded in fog. The trees seemed normal enough, if a bit more gnarled and twisted than the average conifer. Everything seemed to be tinged in a blue-ish light, and a soft wind could be heard whispering past leaves.
Where was he now?
"Up here." came the voice of someone Harry was quickly beginning to hate more than all of his other enemies combined. He looked upward, but saw only trees, until he spun around and realized that his back was to a particularly gnarled, withered tree with a black trunk. Looking up again, he realized Ron was standing amidst the branches, some twenty feet up. A flick of a wand, and a ladder leading upward materialized. Harry jumped, trying to leap the distance himself and show this ugly, braindead peasant that he didn't need assistance, but he didn't even make it a foot off the ground. With another ugly snarl, he climbed the ladder and gripped every rung as if it was Ron's neck.
Once he was at the top, he pulled himself up onto a mass of larger branches with enough distance between them to stand next to Ron. In a sudden burst of spite and energy, he lunged, throwing himself hard at Ron and attempting to, if nothing else, knock him out of the tree, but perhaps to steal his wand if he dropped it. But while Ron was unsteadied, he did not fall, and Harry himself found himself over-balancing backward. He reached out and barely managed to wrap an arm around a tree branch before he fell, legs dangling in the air for a moment before he could pull himself up. He hated Ron with an even greater burning passion now, but it seemed the peasant didn't want to dignify this spiteful action of his.
There was silence for a while, to such an extent that Harry was ready to sarcastically ask if Ron had brought him here just to look at trees and grass. His underlying feeling that something very bad was about to happen, however, kept it from escaping him. After what seemed like forever, though, he heard footsteps. At a very great distance, or perhaps it was just very small feet. Paying attention and tracking the sounds of the noise, he turned his head toward the right.
"Not that I expect you to risk yourself for an ally in danger," Ron said in an oddly quiet voice, "but if you care about preserving your own life, you'll be very quiet these next few seconds."
Harry's dread mounted as he looked carefully and saw that, out of the mist, it was a little girl in a dress approaching: the Queen of Wonderland, Alice. Far from her usual demeanor, she appeared not childishly assured and unconcerned, but fearful and nervous. Ron flicked his wand; there was a sharp whistling sound, that seemed to ring and echo with awful loudness in this silent forest. Alice whirled around, but did not appear to notice them despite their plain position. However, she was not the only one to notice the sound.
"Stay very still, Lionheart."
Harry didn't see them at first, only as they started to show themselves in greater number. They were small creatures, the biggest being the size of hummingbirds and only getting smaller from there. They emitted a faint glow that made it hard to see their details, but one was closeby, next to a branch Harry was on. He could see that it was a small, fairy-like creature, with greenish skin and a nude, doll-like body devoid of genitalia. There were dragonfly wings sprouting from its back, and its humanoid face was set in an expression of curiosity, albeit the shining black eyes in its face were disconcerting. There were small tufts of fur around its neck and it had two antennae sprouting from its forehead. Harry could have reached out and grabbed it, but something told him this was a very, very bad idea.
He could hear whispering. Tiny, high-pitched, childlike voices, slightly warped, as more and more of them exposed themselves, crawling out from behind branches or holes in the wood or hiding places in the grass. Their glow started to repel the fog and light the small patch of grass where Alice was standing as they grew closer, steadily surrounding her. Alice's mounting fear was visible on her face, and at last, with a squeal, she turned and ran as fast as she could in the direction she had come from.
But the fairies were faster. All at once, they dove, flying after her and descending on her with both great speed and immeasurable number. The swarm overtook her, and Harry could not see her, only hear her screaming. She was covered in glowing light, and was on the ground thrashing, a limb here or there visible in the chaos. Harry held back the urge to scream in fear, as in a matter of seconds, the fairies' work was done.
When the majority of the glowing creatures rose up and flitted away in a cloud of light, leaving only a hundred or so picking at the remains, Alice the Queen of Wonderland was no more. Only a skeleton stripped nearly clean, the skull cracked open and a few fairies still feasting inside it, amidst a set of tatters that used to be her clothes.
Harry stared in horror, unable to speak for a few moments.
"What...What are...?"
"Those," Ron said, "are the elves of Misty Valley. This whole valley is said to be a cursed place, and the humans in the nearby village avoid it at all cost. The elves here sometimes swarm there, and take the children back here. Ordinarily, they don't eat children--you saw their hesitation before they attacked--but they do feast on human flesh. Or human-like flesh." Ron corrected himself. "They'll take whatever looks tasty, and if they can tell you aren't really a child, like Alice there...well, you saw what happened. And it's what'll happen to you, if you don't behave yourself."
Harry shivered. How close was he to being thrown to such a horde? Alice had seemed so powerful, and so quickly she was gone...
"Come on."
Harry was grabbed by the arm, and again put through the suffocating, claustrophobic trauma of Apparition. This time, though, he was ready, and while he stumbled on the landing, he stayed both conscious and standing. He looked around wildly, and found that they were still in the same forest, or rather, on the edge of it: he could see grass leading down a slight slope to a lake, around the entire circumference, the forest stretched in a ring. The fog hovered over the surface of the water, but he could see disturbances. Ripples flowing outward, gathering at the shore.
With a mighty splash, Luna Lovegood--or, as Harry would continue to pretend was not the case, even to himself--the Lionheart wearing her shape, broke the surface, gasping for air, and began swimming the short distance to the shore. He looked around wildly, wondering if it was worth it to tell her to get back in the water and stay there--she was his most valuable tool, he couldn't lose her!
"Look up."
Harry did not want to take his eyes away from Luna, who was pulling herself into a sitting position on the sand forming a short beach shore and gazing around. But he did as instructed, and looked up into the sky. There were few clouds, and the moon was full, casting the whole place in more of that eerie light, but the fog did not go that far up. In the moonlight, he could see a large shape, hovering some hundred feet up. It had large, butterfly-like wings, flapping to keep it afloat, but there was definitely a humanoid shape attached. Harry was filled with dread; some kind of elf queen?
"Her name is Rosine." Ron spoke quietly at his side. "She's the ruler of this little horrific paradise, and the elves are her spawn, much like Luna and Hermione are yours. She commands them and she is now Lionheart-Luna's new jailer. The Misty Valley is Luna's new home, and she is destined to undergo what you saw happen to poor Alice back there."
Harry let out a fierce growl, that of a lion, which was so loud it should have attracted major attention, but no one seemed to hear it except for Ron, who simply gave him a withering look.
"Oh, cut it out, brat. See here? She won't die. Not immediately, anyway. Look."
Harry looked up again, just in time to see something hit the water near the shore with a mighty splash. Luna noticed it too, and the hesitation on her face said she was wary. Something floated to the surface and over to the sand, and she went over to investigate. Harry peered as close as he could, wanting to see what it was.
It was a small, rock-like object, smooth and oval-shaped, with odd bumps and protrustions along its surface. It was attached to a cord from which it hung as a necklace, which Harry realized when Luna lifted it up by such a thing.
"That's called a Behelit." Ron said. "Bound by fate to the one that it chooses. Which, in your case, is Luna. Except, it's not a true Behelit. We created one of our own, modified quite a bit. In the ordinary circumstance, it activates when touched by blood from the wielder, responding to their despair by tearing open the astral world. Do you remember that god of fear I mentioned before, in the panopticon? It's a bit like that. The gods this device calls would grant a new life...but like I said, this one is fake."
Harry's brow furrowed, peering with ill feelings in his stomach at the little egg-shaped trinket that Luna was now playing around with. It would be in charge of something awful happening to her, he knew it...
"So, blood activation won't work. It's programmed to respond only to the blood of the creature within--the X- Heart, as we called it, not the suit it wears. When she reaches the end of her sentence, the suit will be stripped off and she will be feasted on one last time, and until then, the device--a Jester's Behelit, as we decided it should be called--will repair her, even from death, which is going to happen quite often given the voracious appetites of the elves around here. When it's finally time to let her go, the Jester's Behelit will activate, opening a door to another dimension. Not to let other beings through, but to push her into theirs."
Harry stopped listening at this point. He leapt down from the tree branch, landing hard on the ground. He would not allow this, he could not allow it! He yelled, calling Luna's name, and she looked up at him, alarmed, as he rapidly closed the distance. He had to take that device from her and get her out of here! And while he was at it, he'd find a way to replicate it, recreate its abilities to keep him alive even when death threatened him in ways he hadn't prepared for--
"Ough!"
Something slammed into him, hard, and suddenly Harry was moving very fast. His feet were skidding across grass, and then hanging in mid-air while he regained his breath. Someone was holding him. Was it Ron? But Harry looked at who had grabbed him, and yelled.
It was Rosine. The girl was not terribly hideous, but her black eyes were merciless and her grin wicked. She was holding him by his midsection, and the wings attached to the back of her head were flapping, keeping them up. Harry kicked out, ignorant of how far he was from the ground, and she let go, only for him to find himself falling through space.
"Aaagh!"
He needed to transform! An eagle, a griffin, anything! But the magic wouldn't answer him, and he continued to fall.
Just before he thought he must surely hit the ground, there was an odd wooden creaking sound from behind him. He continued to fall, but looking up at the sky as the figure that had dropped him winged away, he quickly saw the trees replaced by a doorway, itself rapidly replaced by a dark blue hallway. This was all that Harry could tell before the sound occurred a second time and he felt himself slowing down, but oddly not hitting any ground. He soared backward out of another doorway, and this one slammed shut just as his momentum halted and he felt himself fall back towards it, slamming into it with a loud thunk!
"Oww!"
"So, are you going to try that again?"
Ron's voice reached Harry's ears, and he picked himself up off the ground, utterly disoriented and unsure of what had just happened.
"Luna! Luna!"
"She can't hear you, Lionheart." Ron answered. "We're miles away from her now, on the other side of the valley. You should've known trying that was a useless tactic. Shall we get on with her second sentencing, or go straight to yours?"
Harry was quietly defeated. Ron gestured at the door he was standing on, which, now that Harry noticed it, should not have been there. It was hard wood painted dark blue, and the frame of it was set into the hard soil around it. They were definitely still in the forest of the Misty Valley...there just happened to be a door in the ground. This made very little sense.
"This door," Ron said, approaching with his wand out and pointed at Harry, "leads to a place called the Distortion. It is a twisting set of hallways and rooms where time and space do not properly align and bend in odd ways. A monster with too many bones in its hands stalks these hallways, ready to deliver horribly cruel fates to victims who pass through. The usual fate is stabbing through their body with the sharp bones in its fingers, but there are other ways. Merging them with the walls and furniture, locking them in rooms that slowly shrink and warp around them... There are plenty of possibilities." Ron said.
"You can't..." Harry said, now forced to stare the truth of the loss of his greatest, most powerful tool in the face. "I... I'll get her out of there!"
"I doubt that." Ron said. "That Jester's Behelit that Luna now carries? It's very secure. The door you just appeared from will appear in her path various times, always presenting a possible escape, but always locked. Only when her sentence is up and the X-Heart has been stripped out of its disguise will the door unlock and let her through. At the same time, it will lock against all others."
"Why?!" Harry said, pathetically enraged and only manifesting a weak hiss behind his voice. "Why would you inflict such a fate on her?"
"It was decided that being thrown into a world of magic and faeries and elves suited Luna quite nicely as a punishment, given her fixation on them and determination to be as 'odd' and 'eccentric' as possible. Of course, your twisted definition of 'eccentric' and 'mad' made for quite a lot of torture and mayhem inflicted on innocents. The Misty Valley will turn that around on her and make her the victim of the world of elves who quite like hurting people like her. And for her facade of 'playful madness', plus her part in the decision to brainwash and enslave hundreds of innocent women, it was decided that the Distortion as her final fate would suit her nicely. Many people who enter it go mad in there, you know, unable to comprehend the changing space, well before the monster enters the picture. I think it's fitting that she'll be put through the mental...atrophy, I guess, of being in a world that doesn't make sense, and one she can't force to make sense to her own twisted standards. I suspect she'll break down in there and spend the rest of eternity wanting to go back home, where she can cling to her Alice in Wonderland books that made her feel so much power in her insensibility and attempts at being indefinable."
"I won't let you..." Harry said. "I'll get Hermione and Luna back...I'll get my wives back...I'll build up another dryad army and empower myself so much even you won't be able to hurt me anymore, you weasel!"
"No, you won't." Ron said simply. "And I think we've been in the Misty Valley long enough. The only punishment we've got left to see is yours. I know you're dying not to know, for a change, but it's not up to you. Let's go."
Harry scrambled to his feet, turned on his heel, and ran as fast as he could. He did not care to see or know, not at all. Hermione and Luna could be left to their fates, and he would brave the Misty Valley. The alternative, whatever Ron had in store, was undoubtedly too awful to bear. All he had wanted was to fix the world, to orient it around a perfect being like himself, and make everything right? It was his world, it was what he deserved! And he was being so terribly punished for it!
He would not tolerate it. He would escape into the woods, duck and weave behind trees so that Ron could not hit him with curses, flee so deep into the woods that Ron could not find him and would give up. He would refuse this with all of his power and pride!
But before he could make it more than thirty feet, a spell had hit him in the back, and he went sprawling forward into the blackness.
Where was he now?
"Up here." came the voice of someone Harry was quickly beginning to hate more than all of his other enemies combined. He looked upward, but saw only trees, until he spun around and realized that his back was to a particularly gnarled, withered tree with a black trunk. Looking up again, he realized Ron was standing amidst the branches, some twenty feet up. A flick of a wand, and a ladder leading upward materialized. Harry jumped, trying to leap the distance himself and show this ugly, braindead peasant that he didn't need assistance, but he didn't even make it a foot off the ground. With another ugly snarl, he climbed the ladder and gripped every rung as if it was Ron's neck.
Once he was at the top, he pulled himself up onto a mass of larger branches with enough distance between them to stand next to Ron. In a sudden burst of spite and energy, he lunged, throwing himself hard at Ron and attempting to, if nothing else, knock him out of the tree, but perhaps to steal his wand if he dropped it. But while Ron was unsteadied, he did not fall, and Harry himself found himself over-balancing backward. He reached out and barely managed to wrap an arm around a tree branch before he fell, legs dangling in the air for a moment before he could pull himself up. He hated Ron with an even greater burning passion now, but it seemed the peasant didn't want to dignify this spiteful action of his.
There was silence for a while, to such an extent that Harry was ready to sarcastically ask if Ron had brought him here just to look at trees and grass. His underlying feeling that something very bad was about to happen, however, kept it from escaping him. After what seemed like forever, though, he heard footsteps. At a very great distance, or perhaps it was just very small feet. Paying attention and tracking the sounds of the noise, he turned his head toward the right.
"Not that I expect you to risk yourself for an ally in danger," Ron said in an oddly quiet voice, "but if you care about preserving your own life, you'll be very quiet these next few seconds."
Harry's dread mounted as he looked carefully and saw that, out of the mist, it was a little girl in a dress approaching: the Queen of Wonderland, Alice. Far from her usual demeanor, she appeared not childishly assured and unconcerned, but fearful and nervous. Ron flicked his wand; there was a sharp whistling sound, that seemed to ring and echo with awful loudness in this silent forest. Alice whirled around, but did not appear to notice them despite their plain position. However, she was not the only one to notice the sound.
"Stay very still, Lionheart."
Harry didn't see them at first, only as they started to show themselves in greater number. They were small creatures, the biggest being the size of hummingbirds and only getting smaller from there. They emitted a faint glow that made it hard to see their details, but one was closeby, next to a branch Harry was on. He could see that it was a small, fairy-like creature, with greenish skin and a nude, doll-like body devoid of genitalia. There were dragonfly wings sprouting from its back, and its humanoid face was set in an expression of curiosity, albeit the shining black eyes in its face were disconcerting. There were small tufts of fur around its neck and it had two antennae sprouting from its forehead. Harry could have reached out and grabbed it, but something told him this was a very, very bad idea.
He could hear whispering. Tiny, high-pitched, childlike voices, slightly warped, as more and more of them exposed themselves, crawling out from behind branches or holes in the wood or hiding places in the grass. Their glow started to repel the fog and light the small patch of grass where Alice was standing as they grew closer, steadily surrounding her. Alice's mounting fear was visible on her face, and at last, with a squeal, she turned and ran as fast as she could in the direction she had come from.
But the fairies were faster. All at once, they dove, flying after her and descending on her with both great speed and immeasurable number. The swarm overtook her, and Harry could not see her, only hear her screaming. She was covered in glowing light, and was on the ground thrashing, a limb here or there visible in the chaos. Harry held back the urge to scream in fear, as in a matter of seconds, the fairies' work was done.
When the majority of the glowing creatures rose up and flitted away in a cloud of light, leaving only a hundred or so picking at the remains, Alice the Queen of Wonderland was no more. Only a skeleton stripped nearly clean, the skull cracked open and a few fairies still feasting inside it, amidst a set of tatters that used to be her clothes.
Harry stared in horror, unable to speak for a few moments.
"What...What are...?"
"Those," Ron said, "are the elves of Misty Valley. This whole valley is said to be a cursed place, and the humans in the nearby village avoid it at all cost. The elves here sometimes swarm there, and take the children back here. Ordinarily, they don't eat children--you saw their hesitation before they attacked--but they do feast on human flesh. Or human-like flesh." Ron corrected himself. "They'll take whatever looks tasty, and if they can tell you aren't really a child, like Alice there...well, you saw what happened. And it's what'll happen to you, if you don't behave yourself."
Harry shivered. How close was he to being thrown to such a horde? Alice had seemed so powerful, and so quickly she was gone...
"Come on."
Harry was grabbed by the arm, and again put through the suffocating, claustrophobic trauma of Apparition. This time, though, he was ready, and while he stumbled on the landing, he stayed both conscious and standing. He looked around wildly, and found that they were still in the same forest, or rather, on the edge of it: he could see grass leading down a slight slope to a lake, around the entire circumference, the forest stretched in a ring. The fog hovered over the surface of the water, but he could see disturbances. Ripples flowing outward, gathering at the shore.
With a mighty splash, Luna Lovegood--or, as Harry would continue to pretend was not the case, even to himself--the Lionheart wearing her shape, broke the surface, gasping for air, and began swimming the short distance to the shore. He looked around wildly, wondering if it was worth it to tell her to get back in the water and stay there--she was his most valuable tool, he couldn't lose her!
"Look up."
Harry did not want to take his eyes away from Luna, who was pulling herself into a sitting position on the sand forming a short beach shore and gazing around. But he did as instructed, and looked up into the sky. There were few clouds, and the moon was full, casting the whole place in more of that eerie light, but the fog did not go that far up. In the moonlight, he could see a large shape, hovering some hundred feet up. It had large, butterfly-like wings, flapping to keep it afloat, but there was definitely a humanoid shape attached. Harry was filled with dread; some kind of elf queen?
"Her name is Rosine." Ron spoke quietly at his side. "She's the ruler of this little horrific paradise, and the elves are her spawn, much like Luna and Hermione are yours. She commands them and she is now Lionheart-Luna's new jailer. The Misty Valley is Luna's new home, and she is destined to undergo what you saw happen to poor Alice back there."
Harry let out a fierce growl, that of a lion, which was so loud it should have attracted major attention, but no one seemed to hear it except for Ron, who simply gave him a withering look.
"Oh, cut it out, brat. See here? She won't die. Not immediately, anyway. Look."
Harry looked up again, just in time to see something hit the water near the shore with a mighty splash. Luna noticed it too, and the hesitation on her face said she was wary. Something floated to the surface and over to the sand, and she went over to investigate. Harry peered as close as he could, wanting to see what it was.
It was a small, rock-like object, smooth and oval-shaped, with odd bumps and protrustions along its surface. It was attached to a cord from which it hung as a necklace, which Harry realized when Luna lifted it up by such a thing.
"That's called a Behelit." Ron said. "Bound by fate to the one that it chooses. Which, in your case, is Luna. Except, it's not a true Behelit. We created one of our own, modified quite a bit. In the ordinary circumstance, it activates when touched by blood from the wielder, responding to their despair by tearing open the astral world. Do you remember that god of fear I mentioned before, in the panopticon? It's a bit like that. The gods this device calls would grant a new life...but like I said, this one is fake."
Harry's brow furrowed, peering with ill feelings in his stomach at the little egg-shaped trinket that Luna was now playing around with. It would be in charge of something awful happening to her, he knew it...
"So, blood activation won't work. It's programmed to respond only to the blood of the creature within--the X- Heart, as we called it, not the suit it wears. When she reaches the end of her sentence, the suit will be stripped off and she will be feasted on one last time, and until then, the device--a Jester's Behelit, as we decided it should be called--will repair her, even from death, which is going to happen quite often given the voracious appetites of the elves around here. When it's finally time to let her go, the Jester's Behelit will activate, opening a door to another dimension. Not to let other beings through, but to push her into theirs."
Harry stopped listening at this point. He leapt down from the tree branch, landing hard on the ground. He would not allow this, he could not allow it! He yelled, calling Luna's name, and she looked up at him, alarmed, as he rapidly closed the distance. He had to take that device from her and get her out of here! And while he was at it, he'd find a way to replicate it, recreate its abilities to keep him alive even when death threatened him in ways he hadn't prepared for--
"Ough!"
Something slammed into him, hard, and suddenly Harry was moving very fast. His feet were skidding across grass, and then hanging in mid-air while he regained his breath. Someone was holding him. Was it Ron? But Harry looked at who had grabbed him, and yelled.
It was Rosine. The girl was not terribly hideous, but her black eyes were merciless and her grin wicked. She was holding him by his midsection, and the wings attached to the back of her head were flapping, keeping them up. Harry kicked out, ignorant of how far he was from the ground, and she let go, only for him to find himself falling through space.
"Aaagh!"
He needed to transform! An eagle, a griffin, anything! But the magic wouldn't answer him, and he continued to fall.
Just before he thought he must surely hit the ground, there was an odd wooden creaking sound from behind him. He continued to fall, but looking up at the sky as the figure that had dropped him winged away, he quickly saw the trees replaced by a doorway, itself rapidly replaced by a dark blue hallway. This was all that Harry could tell before the sound occurred a second time and he felt himself slowing down, but oddly not hitting any ground. He soared backward out of another doorway, and this one slammed shut just as his momentum halted and he felt himself fall back towards it, slamming into it with a loud thunk!
"Oww!"
"So, are you going to try that again?"
Ron's voice reached Harry's ears, and he picked himself up off the ground, utterly disoriented and unsure of what had just happened.
"Luna! Luna!"
"She can't hear you, Lionheart." Ron answered. "We're miles away from her now, on the other side of the valley. You should've known trying that was a useless tactic. Shall we get on with her second sentencing, or go straight to yours?"
Harry was quietly defeated. Ron gestured at the door he was standing on, which, now that Harry noticed it, should not have been there. It was hard wood painted dark blue, and the frame of it was set into the hard soil around it. They were definitely still in the forest of the Misty Valley...there just happened to be a door in the ground. This made very little sense.
"This door," Ron said, approaching with his wand out and pointed at Harry, "leads to a place called the Distortion. It is a twisting set of hallways and rooms where time and space do not properly align and bend in odd ways. A monster with too many bones in its hands stalks these hallways, ready to deliver horribly cruel fates to victims who pass through. The usual fate is stabbing through their body with the sharp bones in its fingers, but there are other ways. Merging them with the walls and furniture, locking them in rooms that slowly shrink and warp around them... There are plenty of possibilities." Ron said.
"You can't..." Harry said, now forced to stare the truth of the loss of his greatest, most powerful tool in the face. "I... I'll get her out of there!"
"I doubt that." Ron said. "That Jester's Behelit that Luna now carries? It's very secure. The door you just appeared from will appear in her path various times, always presenting a possible escape, but always locked. Only when her sentence is up and the X-Heart has been stripped out of its disguise will the door unlock and let her through. At the same time, it will lock against all others."
"Why?!" Harry said, pathetically enraged and only manifesting a weak hiss behind his voice. "Why would you inflict such a fate on her?"
"It was decided that being thrown into a world of magic and faeries and elves suited Luna quite nicely as a punishment, given her fixation on them and determination to be as 'odd' and 'eccentric' as possible. Of course, your twisted definition of 'eccentric' and 'mad' made for quite a lot of torture and mayhem inflicted on innocents. The Misty Valley will turn that around on her and make her the victim of the world of elves who quite like hurting people like her. And for her facade of 'playful madness', plus her part in the decision to brainwash and enslave hundreds of innocent women, it was decided that the Distortion as her final fate would suit her nicely. Many people who enter it go mad in there, you know, unable to comprehend the changing space, well before the monster enters the picture. I think it's fitting that she'll be put through the mental...atrophy, I guess, of being in a world that doesn't make sense, and one she can't force to make sense to her own twisted standards. I suspect she'll break down in there and spend the rest of eternity wanting to go back home, where she can cling to her Alice in Wonderland books that made her feel so much power in her insensibility and attempts at being indefinable."
"I won't let you..." Harry said. "I'll get Hermione and Luna back...I'll get my wives back...I'll build up another dryad army and empower myself so much even you won't be able to hurt me anymore, you weasel!"
"No, you won't." Ron said simply. "And I think we've been in the Misty Valley long enough. The only punishment we've got left to see is yours. I know you're dying not to know, for a change, but it's not up to you. Let's go."
Harry scrambled to his feet, turned on his heel, and ran as fast as he could. He did not care to see or know, not at all. Hermione and Luna could be left to their fates, and he would brave the Misty Valley. The alternative, whatever Ron had in store, was undoubtedly too awful to bear. All he had wanted was to fix the world, to orient it around a perfect being like himself, and make everything right? It was his world, it was what he deserved! And he was being so terribly punished for it!
He would not tolerate it. He would escape into the woods, duck and weave behind trees so that Ron could not hit him with curses, flee so deep into the woods that Ron could not find him and would give up. He would refuse this with all of his power and pride!
But before he could make it more than thirty feet, a spell had hit him in the back, and he went sprawling forward into the blackness.
