Visions of a Dark Horizon

My name is Ronald Weasley, and while the major events of our fourth year at Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry may be well known – especially those events associated with the tri-wizard tournament and the rise of the dark lord Voldemort – there were other events, witnessed only by a select few, which would prove far more dire. Had I myself not witnessed these events first hand, I would assume any who recalled them as I do to be mad – and in truth, even now I fear that I have gone mad in the recalling of all that has transpired.

It was during our studies for the winter midterms when Hermione Granger found the accursed tome, deep within the recesses of the forbidden section of the library. The book itself gave off a tangible aura of malignancy, its cover stained and its pages yellowed with a dark antiquity. Even flipping through the mostly undecipherable pages, observing the twisted diagrams and unholy images they presented, we knew the knowledge contained within was of the most forbidden quality, but we were young and we thirsted for knowledge of the arcane.

Though we feared it would be missed, our fascination knew no limits, and so Harry Potter, my friend and confidante, hid the book within his invisibility cloak and we stole away with it, so that we could study it at our leisure and remain undiscovered.

It was several weeks before Hermione discovered the dialect the book was written in, but by that time we had already ascertained it’s identity through other clandestine research – the Necronomicon, a cursed book supposedly lost to the eons, written by the mad Arab, Abdul Alhazred, which chronicled an evil so enormous, it would make even Professor Dumbledore quake in fear. Once the text was deciphered, however, the true horrors the book bore became known.

There were five of us when the first secrets of the book were unleashed – myself, Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, Marcus Worty from Hufflepuff, who was a master of translation spells, and Rebecca Tovy, of Ravenclaw, who was more or less a prodigy in defense against the dark arts – a skill we felt would be an asset if our explorations proved fruitful.

Marcus had tried dozens of incantations which had proved futile, and it was with a heavy arm which he waved his wand with a circular flick and spoke the incantation ‘Arcanum Revelum’. Immediately red sparks leapt from the book, and Rebecca, who had been staring into a twisted symbol on the page, began shrieking and pulling at her hair. Harry and I jumped on her and held her quiet so that Filtch would not hear. Rebecca convulsed and cried out as if hit fully by some unspeakable curse, and Hermione slammed the book shut so that no one else would be affected in the same way. It took over an hour to calm Rebecca down, and any time she was asked what she had seen, she began to weep uncontrollably.

Harry took the book under his cloak again and Hermione and Marcus helped Rebecca back to the Ravenclaw common room. We never saw her again after that – the rumors around the castle were that she had a nervous breakdown while studying, couldn’t handle the course load – but there were other whispers as well, whispers of dark magics and curses, things not spoken aloud.

It was many weeks before we spoke of the book again, long after midterm tests, as the whomping willow was shaking off the last vestiges of winter. It was Hermione who brought it up, in hushed tones, as we were walking back from Hagrid’s hut. The lure of further knowledge was what drove Hermione, you see, and even though we all knew the evils that lurked within the pages of that book, it was Hermione who led our explorations – not for malice, of course. No, Hermione was a pure soul, to be sure. The unexpectedly magical offspring of two simple muggle parents, Hermione had always thirsted for arcane knowledge, always earned top marks in whatever magical subject she studied. No – it was simple schoolyard curiosity, turned dark by the horrible magics that the book held secret, which drove us to open the book again. It was promises of dark and terrible knowledge which excited us, drove us further and further towards some dark horizon we, at our young age, could scarce imagine.

The next time the book was opened, Marcus was not present – he had lost the stomach for it after what happened to Rebecca, but Hermione had studied the incantations Marcus had used to unlock that first dark secret, and her thirst for knowledge since finding the book had grown exponentially. We gathered in a deserted classroom in a unused wing of the castle, several hours after dinner. Traveling slowly under Harry’s invisibility cloak, we were silent as death maneuvering through the cold stone halls, keeping a sharp eye out for teachers or Ms. Norris, old man Filch’s cat. Even if we hadn’t needed to be quiet in our task, though, I doubt we would have spoken at all, such was the somber mood between us. Reaching our destination and taking precautions we felt prudent at the time, we opened the book and Hermione performed the incantation of translation which Marcus had used. Again, red sparks shot from the book, but none of us were looking at the indescribable pages this time, for fear of the same fate which had taken Rebecca. Once the sparks had stopped, we looked cautiously at the pages, and though the original text and blasphemous images were still there, there was a shimmering new text which floated above the page, translating the text to something at least moderately readable by the three of us – though there were many areas which defied translation or understanding. There were passages about great beings who flew across the stars, ancient stellar gods who made their homes in the deep seas of primordial earth, of great wars between these great old ones and some kind of shapeless, shifting monstrosities, and other things much too terrible to mention here, lest I be considered mad.

Though it seemed like just moments, we sat there for hours in silence, the horror growing within us as we realized what it was we were reading. It wasn’t just a book of incantations or some dark history. It wasn’t just the ramblings of a madman. No – as we read, it became more and more clear that the book was a guide to spells and magics so foul, no wizard or witch would dare speak of them. The tale the book told was of a great creature, godlike in its stature, which slept beneath the waves in a great cyclopean city. A great creature who, in it’s death, only slumbered, dreaming of the end of mankind, and who would reawaken one day to carry out that end.

So much of what we read that night was unintelligible, so much of it our innocent minds would not, or could not comprehend, but there was one phrase, one incantation which will haunt me for the rest of my days, a phrase which Hermione picked out of one particularly disturbing passage, under the image of some horrible creature which seemed to be part man, part octopus, part dragon – a creature which, until Hermione read that passage aloud, I would have believed impossible in it’s perfect malevolence. But, though my mind did not understand them, my very soul seemed to shiver at the sound of those cursed words, like they connected with something deep within my subconscious mind. Still I think of these words and I shudder, knowing what horrors they represent….

‘Ia, Ia, Cthulhu F’Thagen’

It was well after midnight by the time we returned from our clandestine studies, and again, none of us would speak of what we had learned. It seemed that we had crossed a threshold that night, and that our perceptions of good and evil would be forever changed by what we had learned. It affected Hermione the most, I fear – I had grown up in a world of magic and the arcane, having come from a wizarding family, and Harry had known evil – at least our original concept of evil, the dark wizard Voldemort – since he was an infant. But Hermione, she saw the world differently, as I have said, and the truths which that foul book unlocked shifted her world view so significantly, I truly feared for her.

The next morning was the beginning of it. The whole of Hogwarts was speaking in whispers, many students were awakened in the night with terrible nightmares, and Professor Trelawney awoke screaming incoherently in the staff wing, so distraught she had to be sedated magically and taken to Madame Pomfrey in the hospital wing. Harry heard from a few Quidditch players that she had been raving about an ancient evil, an island sunk beneath the waves, a sleeping giant who stirred deep within the earth itself. Madness, they had believed, and there was talk about evil spells and death eaters and ‘he who must not be named’ influencing peoples’ dreams. We knew the truth, however – there could be no mistake that Harry, Hermione and I had awoken something while we read those cursed pages, and that the places we had visited would have a most profound effect on the world we knew.

What happened next I blame myself for, because I, out of the three of us, understood what was happening. I believe I understood what power the book held, I believe I understood what events were in motion, and still I went along, I passed up good judgment and common sense, and like so many times before, I followed my friends into the darkness.

It took several more weeks, and we were well into final term when Hermione finally convinced Harry and I to bring the book one night, up to the astrology tower where we would not be disturbed. There was something she needed to check, some stellar alignment which concerned her, and so when we arrived she was checking a stack of astrological books and charts, peering through the enchanted telescopes and gazing glasses trying to verify something, some stellar event which she would not speak of. Harry placed the book on a cleared table, but I stopped and stared at several rolls of parchment spread out, the ink on some of them still wet. Written in a shaky scrawl were blasphemous symbols and sigils, scrawled across rolls and rolls of parchment as if by some manic hand forced to keep writing by some black compulsion. I looked at Hermione again and noted her hands were dark with ink, and she had a glare in her eye which was unnatural, as if she were possessed by some internal demons.

I made my concerns known; I told both my friends that we were meddling in powers we had no business dealing with. Harry seemed torn, but Hermione was intent, insistent. She stood over the book and glared at us, then waved her wand and uttered an incantation which made my blood freeze. The book opened and a chill wind blew through the room, and Hermione continued to recite the incantation, an unearthly glow seeming to spread out of the book. Harry shouted for her to stop, but she was lost, her eyes glassy, her lips mouthing blasphemous words not uttered in a thousand years. The midnight sky somehow grew darker and the wind grew in its ferocity. Harry was struck by something and fell to the floor – unconscious or dead I could not tell. It was then that I saw it, flickering in the air above the book, like a tear in the fabric of the world. I wanted to run, but I couldn’t stop staring at it. I can’t even describe it – the geometry was all wrong, angles curled in upon themselves somehow, the air writhing with shapes unrecognizable to the human eye.
I was locked there, staring into that unnatural abyss, while one of my best friends was laying limp on the floor and my other best friend was held in thrall by this ancient evil. I was helpless to look away, and the things I saw there, writhing in the darkness, those things will stay with me forever.
What pulled me from my trance I do not know, but I suddenly found myself hurtling down the stairs from the astrology tower in a blind panic. The halls and rooms of my beloved Hogwarts were alien to me as I ran in search of help, and by mercy of the gods, I ran round a corner and directly into Professor Dumbledore – I did not wonder why our illustrious headmaster was wandering about the halls at such an hour, but merely gained enough composure to gasp ‘Astrology Tower’ and collapsed there in the hall.

I awoke two days later, so I am told, lying in the hospital wing, my parents by my side, along with my sister Ginny. I turned my head and saw Harry, sitting up and chatting with Professor McGonagall, a small bandage on his head, but seeming otherwise unharmed. Hermione was nowhere to be seen, and I began to sit up to look for her when my mother assured me she would make a full recovery, but required more comprehensive treatments than Madame Pomfrey could supply.
In the aftermath, I learned that Professor Dumbledore knew that something was awry that night in the observatory, but the energies were so chaotic he could not understand what or where. Once I had given him the location, he rushed to the astrology tower with Professor Snape and Professor Macgonagall and was able to close the rift and seal the book. Harry had merely gotten a bump in the head, and Hermione had suffered some form of possession which, while difficult to treat, was not at all life-threatening. The book, I was told, was sent to America, Miskatonic University, where it would be kept safe and out of the hands of those who would use it for evil. Even though the events which transpired were very nearly tragic, it was fortunate that we had stumbled across the tome before a servant of the Dark Lord had found it – the powers he would have been able to unleash with the book would have been cataclysmic.

Hermione was recovered fully by final exams, and we never really spoke of that night again, but from that day on, we knew what evils lurked in this world – and beneath it. Things more foul and unholy than any dark Witch or Wizard who ever walked, things which still slumber in the dark places of the world, waiting to be awakened once more…