The green-gold roots snapped shut.
The black finger froze.
For one breath, the detention room became completely still.
Then the thing below the lock realized what had happened.
The finger tried to retreat.
It failed.
The floor under Quirrell's chair had become a cage within a cage. Wutu Divine Light sealed the stone, Yimu Divine Light grew through the mark, Filch's talismans closed the doorway, and the decoy path Theodore had prepared folded behind the finger like a trapdoor.
The dream below had reached upward.
Theodore caught it.
Quirrell stared at the black finger protruding from the mark beneath his chair.
His face had no blood left.
"My Lord…"
Voldemort did not answer.
For once, the Dark Lord had nothing clever to say.
Because he had understood.
He was not the master of this contact.
He was bait tied to a hook, and something ancient had just bitten.
The black finger twisted.
The detention room shook.
Outside, Filch planted his peachwood sword against the floor and slapped both palms onto the door talismans.
"Oh no, you don't!"
Mrs. Norris hissed beside him, fur standing on end.
The door bulged outward once.
Filch's boots scraped back half an inch.
His face turned red.
"This is detention! You leave when I say you leave!"
The talismans burned brighter.
The door stopped bulging.
Theodore did not look away from the finger.
A thin layer of black water seeped from it and crawled across the floor, trying to find cracks in the room's rules. The water touched the first desk.
The desk aged instantly, wood turning gray and brittle.
Theodore raised his hand.
Fuxi Divine Heaven Resonance sounded.
The black water paused.
Not destroyed.
Corrected.
Its rhythm changed from spreading to circling.
Theodore guided it into a small loop around the mark.
The finger shuddered.
"Good," Theodore said. "You can follow instructions."
The finger attacked.
Not physically.
A dream slammed into the room.
For a moment, the detention room vanished.
Quirrell saw himself in Albania, alone, eating stolen bread under a dead tree.
Then he saw Voldemort.
Not as a shadow.
Not as a master.
As a wounded thing crawling toward him through the forest, whispering promises.
Power.
Knowledge.
Importance.
Quirrell trembled.
That had been the first hook.
Not fear.
Flattery.
Someone had finally told him he mattered.
Voldemort felt the memory and crushed down at once.
"Do not look."
But the thorn on Quirrell's forehead burned.
Snape's voice seemed to echo from memory.
At least be pathetic in your own voice.
Quirrell gasped.
The dream shifted.
Dumbledore appeared beside him, offering tea.
Then McGonagall helping him pick up fallen books.
Then students laughing at his garlic lesson.
Then himself, before the turban, before the forest, before Voldemort.
Nervous.
Weak.
Embarrassing.
Alive.
Quirrell began to cry.
Voldemort roared inside him.
The black finger pulsed, feeding on the struggle.
Theodore's eyes sharpened.
So that was its method.
It was not only attacking Quirrell.
It was stirring memory, making Voldemort and Quirrell collide harder. The more they struggled, the stronger the mark became.
A dirty trick.
Very effective.
Theodore stepped forward and placed two fingers on Quirrell's forehead.
The thorn brightened.
"Hold one memory," Theodore said.
Quirrell's voice broke. "I can't."
"One."
"I can't!"
"Then choose a small one."
Quirrell sobbed.
The black finger twisted closer.
Voldemort hissed, "Weak."
Quirrell's lips trembled.
Then, somehow, he found one.
The staff room.
A teacup in his shaking hands.
McGonagall threatening to make him alphabetize the shelf if he dropped the books again.
It was stupid.
Humiliating.
Completely useless.
His.
The thorn flashed green.
The dream pressure cracked.
The black finger recoiled.
Theodore smiled faintly.
"Good."
Outside the door, Filch shouted, "Is it working?"
"Yes."
"Can I come in?"
"No."
Filch looked offended.
Inside, Voldemort's anger surged.
"You think this changes anything?"
Theodore looked at him.
"It already has."
Quirrell's breathing was ragged, but his eyes stayed his for three full breaths.
Three.
Yesterday, he barely had one.
The black mark under the chair dimmed slightly.
The finger tried to pull back again.
Theodore finally moved.
Heaven and Earth in My Palm opened.
Not around the whole room.
Only around the finger.
Space folded tightly, shrinking the distance between the black finger, the decoy mark, and the Wuzhuang roots beneath the floor. The finger stretched unnaturally, as if caught between dream and reality.
The thing below the lock pressed harder.
The detention room's walls groaned.
The talismans on the door burned blue-white.
Filch gritted his teeth.
One talisman turned to ash.
Then another.
Mrs. Norris yowled.
Filch slammed his own palm against the doorframe.
A thin line of blood appeared under his fingers.
The yellow light steadied.
Filch stared at the blood, then at the door.
"If you think that scares me, you haven't met Mrs. Norris during bath time."
The door held.
In the Room of Requirement, Willow Immortal's main body shook violently.
Its leaves rattled like rain.
The trapped dream mist in the third-floor classroom tried to answer its source, but the blackboard lit up at once.
Stay where you are.
The mist slammed against the classroom cage.
Failed.
The nine nails beneath the Quidditch pitch lit one by one.
The heartfire burned.
The severed-hand nail pulsed.
The lake layer brightened.
Under the Black Lake, Gatekeeper opened one golden eye.
"You caught another piece."
Theodore answered through the foundation, "It reached first."
"Greedy."
"Yes."
"Careful."
That word carried weight.
Gatekeeper was not joking.
Theodore knew why.
This was not like severing the hand from the gate on the pitch. That hand had come through a formation channel. This finger came directly through the dream's own response to Voldemort's hunger.
If Theodore pulled too hard, the black door below the prison might wake further.
If he pulled too weakly, the finger would escape and learn from the cage.
Neither was acceptable.
Theodore adjusted the rhythm.
Fuxi Divine Heaven Resonance became softer.
Lower.
Rather than cutting, it lulled.
The black finger slowed.
It thought it had found an opening.
Theodore let it think so.
The finger stretched further into the room, reaching toward Quirrell's shadow again.
Voldemort's anger became anticipation.
He believed the thing below was still answering him.
That belief was useful.
Theodore waited.
The finger touched Quirrell's shadow.
The thorn flashed.
Quirrell screamed.
Voldemort pushed forward.
The black mark opened slightly wider.
Now.
Theodore closed his hand.
Heaven and Earth in My Palm folded shut.
The black finger snapped at the joint.
A silent scream rolled through the detention room.
The desks cracked.
The candles went out.
The talismans on the door burst into flame.
Filch was thrown backward into the corridor wall, landing with a pained grunt.
Mrs. Norris jumped onto his chest and hissed at the door.
Inside, Theodore caught the severed finger fragment in his palm.
It thrashed wildly, leaking black water and dream smoke.
The mark beneath Quirrell's chair tried to pull it back.
Wutu Divine Light pressed down.
Yimu Divine Light wrapped around it.
Fuxi resonance smoothed the chaos.
The fragment shrank into a black nail-sized shard.
Theodore looked at it.
This piece was clearer than the previous dream drop.
Far clearer.
The thing below the lock had lost another part.
Small, but real.
Theodore placed it into the Wuzhuang foundation.
The entire detention room trembled.
A new root grew beneath the floor.
Not toward the lake.
Toward the false door.
The decoy became stronger.
Good.
The real door would hear less now.
The false door would sound more convincing.
The mark under Quirrell's chair shrank to a thin outline.
Quirrell collapsed against the chair, breathing like a man pulled from deep water.
Voldemort was silent.
Not wounded silent.
Not planning silent.
Shocked silent.
For a few seconds, Quirrell's own eyes stayed open.
He looked at Theodore.
"Did… did I help?"
Theodore considered.
"Yes."
Quirrell closed his eyes.
A broken laugh escaped him.
Then he began crying again.
Outside, Dumbledore arrived at the corridor at last, wand in hand, Fawkes flying above him.
He saw Filch on the floor, the burned talismans, Mrs. Norris standing guard, and the detention room door smoking.
"Argus."
Filch coughed.
"Still closed."
Dumbledore helped him up.
"So it is."
Filch looked proud despite the pain.
Theodore opened the door from inside.
The room smelled of burned paper, cold water, and old nightmares.
Dumbledore looked past him at Quirrell.
Then at the faint mark under the chair.
Then at Theodore's hand.
"You took something."
"Yes."
"From below?"
"A finger."
Dumbledore closed his eyes briefly.
"I find myself increasingly unwilling to ask follow-up questions."
Filch rubbed his shoulder.
"Did detention work?"
Theodore looked at the room.
The decoy mark was stable.
Quirrell's thorn was brighter.
Voldemort's connection had been used against him.
The thing below had lost a fragment.
"Yes."
Filch straightened with immense satisfaction.
"I knew it."
Dumbledore glanced at him.
"No hooks."
Filch's satisfaction dimmed.
Theodore walked out of the room and looked toward the far end of the corridor.
For now, the dream below the lock had retreated.
But not from fear alone.
It had learned.
It now knew Quirrell could resist.
It knew Theodore could cut pieces from its reach.
It knew the detention room was a false path.
Perhaps not fully.
But enough.
The next attempt would be different.
Theodore looked at the black shard now buried in the foundation.
A new image surfaced from it.
Not a city.
Not a tower.
Not the black door.
A name carved into stone.
Aurelius Dumbledore.
Below it, one sentence.
The lock must dream, or the prisoner wakes.
Theodore's smile faded.
Ah.
So the dream was not only the prisoner.
It was also part of the seal.
That made everything much worse.
◇ BONUS & SUPPORT ◇
◇ 1 bonus chapter for every 10 reviews — drop a comment!
◇ 1 bonus chapter for every 100 Power Stones.
◇ Read 60 chapters ahead on P@treon → patreon.com/StrawHatStudios