Sniffing in the Dark PV Caradoc Browne Finished

As they both stood in the dark again, the badger smiled nervously to himself. "Well... here we go again..." Grumbling under his breath as the cold took a hold of his heart, he could feel his hairs standing back up as the skittering drew closer to their location. They were coming for them and they needed to act quickly if they wished to find out a thing or two tonight. It seemed evil was on the move tonight and that wasn't a good sign.

Focusing his line of sight down the hall, the black hole they were drawn to. Caradoc would stick out his wand towards the empty space and cite the incantation in his mind. Homenum Revelio. If these creatures were the product of any spell, Caradoc would know shortly if anyone would be close by them. Setting a trap for them most likely. Drawing them in.

They still had some time before the creatures would reach their position. Before they'd be trampelled by hundreds if not thousands of crawling and skittering shadowlike creatures. He had no clue what Nora was planning to do. There was no plan they had discussed before hand. All they both knew was that they needed to move forward and find the source to all these attacks.

With wide eyes, Caradoc peered into the dark as his spell took effect. Was there nothing he could see? No one he could notice slipping away? There had to be someone behind all this? They had to find soemthing, or they'd be fighting forever.

Action: Cast Homenum Revelio

Her suspicions were correct. The light never destroyed the shadows permanently. Where there was an absence of light, the darkness would always exist. And this darkness was alive. She could feel it trying to hit her, trying to grip itself around her ankles as they walked. This could have reached the entire school by now but it might only be in the dungeons. Slytherin was attacked at night - where there was more darkness. There were candles that lined the walls of most of the castles... Were they intentionally removed that night or did the dark shadows overpower them... or sneak in another way? Was her common room and office crawling with these shadowy creatures, just waiting to lash out as soon as the light fell.

The idea of her sitting in an office full of these disgusting creatures that kept touching her made her feel a little nauseated. But that was a problem for another time. She focused on the matter at hand. There had to be another way, a source to all of this. They could not just keep the castle fully lit in every corner, every moment of every day. There had to be more.

Hjørdis swallowed as she heard his voice. Did they actually ever stop? The darkness was moving, it was capable of attacking. It was alive. She had no idea how or why it was alive. It acted alive. Pointing towards the darkness that she could see, she chanted immobulus! Honestly, she had no idea if it would work but testing it out now seemed smarter than going deep inside and getting trapped, especially if lumos failed them for any reason.

They should have come up with a battle plan. Hjørdis had no idea what they would find down here, if anything but they continued nonetheless. They were both determined to - at the very least - try and find a source for all of this or a way to control it. Any information they gathered would help them in the long run.

ACTION: Cast Immobulus on the darkness

The darkness would always return, it was just a matter of -when-

Past the penumbra, where night meets day the darkness seemed almost fluid as it reached out towards the light only to recoil as it breached the ring cast from the luminescence of the Professor's wand. From the faint ambient aura expelled by the Patronus she would see the darkness recoil as it cut down the hallway. However, that would not last forever, which was a terrifying reality. The darkness would become brave and the tendrils of inky blackness would reach further into the light nearly touching the runespore. Long, twisted, thing strands of gloom would extend and nearly fade before recoiling back with a snap. Yet each time they seemed braver.

Homenum Revelio

The Human-presence-revealing Spell (Homenum Revelio) is a charm which reveals the presence of other humans in the surrounding environment. He would feel something, a presence. A movement. A pressure even. So close he felt that they might be breathing on their neck, but there was no hot, moist breath. No scent, human or otherwise less his lovely companion.

Unrelated, he would get a whiff of something that resembled sulfur. Nora would smell it too, this faint lingering scent.

Immobulus

The Head of Slytherin would have to try, but there were so many, even if she could find one among the sea of many, it would not prevent the onslaught. It did not work regardless, there was no form. No biology to hinder. Just this disembodied calignosity.

Something would reach further, like a long blackened hand and finally grip the runespore in it's slender, spindly hands. When it did, Nora would see a change in the creature. A darkness. A corruption. It was like snuffing out a candle, only after the puff of smoke the light was not gone but rather Cimmerian shade and it answered to Nora no longer. The runespore would turn on them and attack!

There was something. He could feel it pressing on. But there was nothing clear or vibrant. Hidden? Or perhaps not exactly human? The smell of sulphur reached his nose. Fire? Caradoc furrowed his brow as he peered into the darkness before him. There was something burning ahead? "Do you smell that, Nora?" He said as he still tried to look for anything out of the ordinary. Something was around, something was definitely attacking. He just could not place his finger on it.

His wand waved around and spiralled through the air. "Appare Vestigium" He whispered softly trying out something new to see if it would lead them somewhere. Perhaps some footsteps, perhaps a clue lying in the dark. They could maybe trace it back to its origins deep within the dungeons. Caradoc wondered how far down the tunnels actually went, and for what purpose. Who had built these and with what intent? There was no need for extra classrooms in here. Broom closets enough upstairs, so even something as mundane as that made no sense at all.

And now the possibility had grown that someone has been using these passages for hiding their malicious intentions. Schemes in the dark. But how did they enter? The possibility they were let in was still there. A scary thought to be sure.

The faint light Nora's patronus had given them seemed to be snuffed out behind Doc's back. It seemed to make the skittering only louder. His head would turn, just to see the runespoor lashing out in attack towards his friend. "NORA!"

Action: Cast the tracking spell.

The head of Slytherin walked through the dungeons, the sound of her boots tapping lightly against the stone cold floors echoed throughout. Her eyes narrowed as she stared at the Runespoor. The darkness would recoil from it but... it felt like they were getting closer. As though they were becoming unafraid. Long dark strands of shadows reached out before snapping backwards. It felt like a game of don't starve where you protected the light from being diminished by the long hands of the dark.

Her eyes tore away from it to cast the immobulus on the approaching hands. It did not work. It was not a single entity that she could hold back. They had to find another way to destroy it. Keeping the castle in light might have been the only option for now. It was a temporary measure. For where there was light, there would always be shadows. The only way to remove a shadow was to remove everything around. People had shadows. There was no guarantee that their own shadows were safe from this... A shudder ran down her spine at the thought of it. Students being attacked by their very own shadows, that came alive. There would be no end to the massacre.

"Yes..." She responded to Caradoc. She could smell it too. The burning smell. Was there someone deep within the dungeons, that had a fire lit for warmth? It seemed to be getting stronger as they walked, it was likely coming from within the dungeons rather than from the Slytherin common room. Though her mind did fear the worst for a moment, despite it defying the logic she knew. "Burning...?"

The runespoor was caught. Her eyes widened. The creature was changing in front of her eyes. She saw smoke. The darkness had grabbed her patronus and... it removed it? She readied her wand to cast lumos. They needed lig- her gasp escaped her lips. The patronus was still there but it looked so different. No. That was not possible. Surely. A patronus was a defensive spell, a shield against the worst. Her heart pounded. It was also no longer hers. Her mind was filled with everything that was not happiness.

The fear of students suffering - or worse, dying. The lack of trust for people she ought to be able to trust and the constant worry that they will betray her. The helplessness at not actually knowing what was going on. The fear of failing... Watching everyone she cares about get hurt in front of her eyes.

Hjørdis knew it was no longer the patronus that she had summoned. She had no idea how it turned but the darkness was capable of corrupting it. That was kind of terrifying. A very terrifying thought, actually. She instinctively waved her wand in front of her, protego! Taking a step back as she cast the shield charm, moving to a defensive position.

Her frickin' patronus was attacking her... What was going on with Hogwarts? She did not look at the Head of Hufflepuff. She heard his voice though. He was seeing what she was seeing, right? This was a thing that was actually happening? "What the hel- it corrupted the patronus?!" Her voice was clearly panicked, confused and a little louder than it normally was, trying to make sense of everything that was happening. How did the darkness corrupt a patronus? The darkness... The spiders... They were the ones that bite the students. A shadow was capable of wounding the students so badly, potentially even the curse itself. And now this...

She should have lit the room up but light would not protect them from the attacking runespoor. Her instincts told her to shield first, question later. So that was what she did. Happy thoughts. She needed happy thoughts.

Think happy.

. . .

Come on. Come on. Come on.

Meeting new people that weren't insufferable idiots... Opening up to a whole new world...

A flash of her grandmother smiling warmly at her. The image of her grandpa being proud of her. Seeing her father grinning like a dork. The first time she was learning how to bake with her gran, flour everywhere and the sound of laughter in the room. Her grandpa reading to her as a child, tucking her into bed. Her dad walking in to surprise her on her birthday one year, when he said he would not be able to make it. The day she learned magic was real, the time she brewed her first successful potion, winning an alchemy competition, the moment she first saw Jeger. The moment she first gazed into his beautiful blue eyes...

Baby Dymphna reaching out and grabbing her little finger. The look of excitement on Callie's face when Hjørdis told her that she was a witch. Finding out about Elaine, and how they happened to be working together. Seeing the look of pure joy on a Nico's face as she enjoyed her baking. Being hugged by Kaegen, despite the fact that she was convinced he would attack her at any given moment. The heartbreaking-ly beautiful words of Tyranni that melted her cold heart in an instant and filled it with warmth. Receiving a secret santa gift from a student unexpectedly over Christmas. Brewing potions in the middle of the night for nothing but the pure fun and love of it. Baking for hours on the morning of her birthday with good company and tea. Being happy and confident - and drunk - enough to sing and play in public...

Hjørdis focused on pushing out the dark, filling it with every single happy moment she could think of.

ACTION: Cast Protego

"Appare Vestigium!"

Caradoc Browne would announce and a swirl of gold about him would mark the floor. It was as if someone had unleashed a cloud of glitter, the craft herpes of the world in this dungeon basement. The gold glitter would cover the floor and the walls. An invisible adhesive would capture this glitter and he would see all matters of concern.

Footsteps, many footsteps down the center of the hall.

On the walls, markings approximately every twenty feet. The markings were odd, runic in nature and they had something to say:.

Þat kann ek it tolfta, ef ek sé á tré uppi váfa virgilná,: svá ek ríst ok í rúnum fák, at sá gengr gumi ok mælir við mik.

I know a twelfth one if I see up in a tree, a dangling corpse in a noose, I can so carve and colour the runes, that the man walks and talks with me.

The footsteps turned to the left into a solid wall twenty meters ahead of them. If they followed the footsteps onward towards that sharp turn, they would start to hear something. A muffle voice. Yelling. A scream. It was their, well Caradoc's children. This time Nora's children were safe and tucked into their beds. It seemed whenever her children got their lives together, something tragic would follow the very next month. An unsettling pattern to say the least that she had not quite caught onto.

Had Caradoc or Nora noticed a pattern, they would have realized that the signs were in place and everything had aligned for a tragedy. Hufflepuff had recently won the House Cup as well as the year in Quidditch. Everything was coming up Millhouse for House Hufflepuff, it was always the high before the fall. Where was Professor Kibitzer when they needed her to predict such tragedies! Of course there was a wall before them but the glitter seemed to cover the wall for a three foot span from floor to ceiling. The sound of voices, clear as day. The sound of them moving. Struggling. Calling out.

Standing there the Professor would likely be forced to ponder what was beyond this stone wall. It appeared solid upon visual inspection, no different from the walls around except it was covered in gold dust thanks to his tracking spell.

Was it a trick? Was it a trap.

The darkness around them remained aggressive, stalking the perimeter of their light. Nightmare fuel for days, curiosity or perhaps stupidity had beckoned them onward. Now, the sounds of panic rather than silence or secret industry would propel them further.

Yes, they came here to help. There might have been an aspect of stubborn curiosity. Of experienced pride. They were adults, full fledged, experienced wizards. Experts perhaps in a specific trade. They could handle this. They could fix this on their own. It was this sort of mindset that made them no different than the kids, they were just a good decade or two older but they were making the same mistakes. They had the same ambitions and the same pride. The same belief that they could do it on their own. That they had to. That they should. It would be their collective undoing, the children for hiding so much and the adults the same. The adults had the power but the children were many; so many hands, ears and eyes wasted. Had they considered that the children, many of them, held pieces to this puzzle. Pieces that Nora and Caradoc would never be able to access.

The problem was that they did not want to involve the kids. Children were not meant to go to war. Children were meant to be safe in their beds. Both of them knew this even if both of then expressed this sentiment differently. Being a house-parent comes with not just parental responsibility but also sentiment. They are after all children, perhaps not theirs by blood but theirs by something intangible. Affection sometimes harder to express, the adults that ambled these halls despite the obvious risk to their person did not do so casually on a whim. There is no determination in a whim. There is no resolve.

That resolve and determination to trudge onward would become a sick feeling in the pit of their stomach however when they heard those sounds -- the sounds of terrified children in pain, fighting for their lives. However, first Professor Jensen had to contend with a new terror -- a Patronus that was corrupted by the grasping darkness. A spell that was supposed to protect her had turned on her. Had been corrupted by some unfathomable evil.

It was then that she would learn that the very nature of the darkness was to corrupt. To change. To transform.

The Runsespore would turn on its former master, dark fangs bared.

Think happy thoughts or die. Become Peter Pan girl!

Meeting new people that weren't insufferable idiots... Were any of them idiots or insufferable really or was it merely her pride that she had to feel that way. Meeting people she valued, sure there were some people that were better than others. Some that failed to think. Some that lacked the capacity to do so. Some that only thought of themselves. But there was value even in those failures. Something that made them worth addressing at least once.

Opening up to a whole new world... The world, the very universe that she surrounded herself with was unique and vast but there were many existing in cadence, parallel to her own. what separated her from Hufflepuff and from Gryffindor was her ability to express. Ambition and pride defined her. Her company defined her also. Meet the right people. Get powerful, be something. A gift of its own, the want to climb and aspire. The ability to assess those around you and determine if they are assets, competition or irrelevant. The ability to refine their company. A trait that Hufflepuffs sorely lacked. But it was together, through their combined effort and skills that they would be best. Nora for her shrewdness and Caradoc for his uncompromising need to be a hero not for the sake of heroics or white knighting but because it needs to be done. A grand distinction many fail to realize. There is a reason he is not in the house of red, but rather honey and it is not due to frailty but rather the why.

Then the memories would come. The ones where they were not insufferable idiots. Really most people were better than credited but those bad ones had a way of standing out. Of experiences and tender moments. Those little things that are so easy to overlook and forget.

Nora would cast Protego, filling herself with the love and joy she like so many deny themselves. Light and love have such power and in a dreary place such as this, a destiny. The corruption would attempt to strike at her but fail. When it reached the shield it would disperse in a puff of smoke.

Indeed, the fought back the corruption but the darkness was still all around.

Light... they needed light!

The kids are beyond that wall.

Thread merged and continued in It is Tradition at This Point. THREAD FINISHED.