Disclaimer:
Harry Potter and all of its characters belong to J.K. Rowling.
I own nothing but the original characters I make.
"Dialogue"
'Thoughts'
-Author notes-
Chapter 101: Trauma
A.N - This is not a pleasant chapter. Be warned.-
Ginny glanced over at the archway with hesitation.
"Go," Tom told her. "I will use whatever time I have left to delay the Obscurial from reaching the last level of the library. I'll try to protect the most important memories, but you must hurry."
"But… what if I can't do this alone? What if I fail him? What if—"
"Ginny," Tom interrupted her. "Listen to me. You can do this. You go in there and find Harry's consciousness."
"And then?"
"And then… you need to help him overcome his traumas. Only then would he be strong enough to get rid of the Obscurial plaguing him."
"Okay, so finding him is the easy part," Ginny said.
"I suppose it is," Tom admitted. "I cannot help you on that. You will need to figure it out on your own. I know you can do it, Ginny. Only you can."
"Yeah okay...I get it. "Ginny took a deep breath and nodded. "I'm going then."
"Good luck," said Tom with a smile. "And goodbye, Ginny."
"Goodbye...Tom."
<><><><><><><><><><>
The moment she walked through the arch, Ginny found herself floating inside a black void.
At first, she thought that something had gone awry and she had ended up in the wrong place. This could not be the inner parts of Harry's mind. There was nothing here.
But moments later, images began to appear around her.
"More memories?" That's what it looked like to her. Soon, she came to understand that these images represented something else.
She saw Harry standing on top of the tallest tower of Hogwarts. He was looking down. His eyes were empty. There was no emotion displayed in them.
She could feel the pain and despair in him. The sheer loneliness filled his very being until reaching a breaking point.
Then… he jumped from the tower without saying a word.
"Noo!" Ginny screamed in horror while looking at a very vivid image of Harry's body splattering against the ground.
She felt shivers running across her metaphysical body as she covered her eyes.
Instead of normal memories that were saved in the library and could be erased at any time he wanted, what Harry had stored in this black void...were his traumas. Something that would never go away and will forever haunt him. These were his lowest moments. The worst of the worst.
"No, no, no…" Ginny began to repeat. More images manifested before her. They looked like those old movies created by a projector.
But in this case, Ginny could do more than just watch and hear Harry during his worst moments. She could also feel what he felt at the time.
She screamed over and over as she watched him burn himself with Fiendfyre, freeze his body, drown, and get hit by a lightning bolt of his own creation. Be decapitated, dismembered, evaporated.
Every time his body died in the Frozen World, it came back again. Because as long as he remained trapped in a place with no time, he could harm himself but not die. No matter how much he tried… and he did try so many times. There was no escape from his torment.
"Please… stop…" Tears poured from her eyes. All that pain… loneliness… agony sustained over the course of thousands of years.
She felt as if she were losing her own grasp on reality. A defensive mechanism to escape the pain.
Ginny now had a better understanding of what Harry had gone through and how his mind became so broken. Human beings were not meant to live in solitude for such long periods of time. It would drive anyone insane.
"No… I can't take this anymore," Ginny said as yet another image appeared in front of her.
However, she quickly noticed that this one was different. Harry was standing in the Great Hall of Hogwarts.
He was screaming while grasping his head. Wisps of black smoke formed around his body.
"Harry…" Ginny recognized that ethereal black substance. It looked different, but it had the same impression as the black goo invading the Mind Library. "That's the Obscurus. This must be the moment of its creation," she muttered.
The dark substance seemed to take over Harry for a moment. His magic started to run out of control.
Tables, chairs, the tools, and books that Harry had placed all over the hall were now being destroyed. Even the statues of his friends that he had so carefully created were suffering from the outburst.
"Ahhhh!" Harry's eyes turned completely black. The Obscurus was trying to wrestle control of his body and magic.
Ginny noted that the nearby space was starting to become warped. A sphere of light manifested above Harry.
"What is he doing?" Ginny wondered. This was not something created by the Obscurus. Harry was doing that. "He is fighting back against it," she realized.
As the black smoke became more concentrated, it attempted to envelop his body. In response, Harry opened his mouth and muttered three words that Ginny could barely make out.
"Fulmen Ultionis Solis." The sphere of light hovering above Harry had been growing nonstop, collecting more energy from its surroundings and bending all the space nearby.
Then, when it reached its critical mass, it exploded…
The resulting blast left Ginny blinded for a long moment. It did not hurt her, but she still felt the immense heat being produced by it.
When all the smoke and dust finally cleared out, Ginny was shocked to find the result.
Hogwarts had been completely destroyed, leaving only a few broken walls behind. At the epicenter of the explosion was Harry, lying on the ground.
Ginny knew that he should have died in that explosion. She had become familiar with the feel of 'Death' at this point.
But as usual, Harry's body returned to its normal state, just as he was on the day of his arrival.
There were no signs of the Obscurus. However, Ginny knew that it was not gone. It would remain dormant inside Harry for now, waiting for the moment he lost control of his emotions.
Ginny did not want to keep looking at this. She walked past the images and ventured deeper into his mind.
"Harry!" she called for him.
He must be here. He needed to be here, and she had to find him before her own mind broke apart. Because then, there would be no one left to help him.
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